In Beckett's Eh Joe, Charles Dance (substituting for Michael Gambon) in dressing gown in a small dim room, closes the curtains over windows, cupboard and door and sits in profile to the audience. His face appears, gigantic and slowly growing, on the scrim between us, every detail of his face writ large as a female voice begins its litany of accusations—in his head, or filtering through the floorboards, in the air between us. Dance distributes the changes in his expression sparely, initially with glowering intensity and then a weakening into vulnerability as the truth, or whatever it is it, hits home and a tear falls at the end of the half hour performance. If Krapp worries at his own earlier recorded and often forgotten utterances, at least the voice is his own. Joe is like a man haunted and rendered speechless, or is the voice his own ventriloquism, the only way he can admit his doubts and crimes? Directed by Atom Egoyan, the screen device with its double view of Dance, apart and face-to-face with us, worked strongly both emotionally and as an easily accommodated theatre-cinema hybrid.
http://www.realtimearts.net/article/77/8328
http://www.realtimearts.net/article/77/8328
Eh Joe is a much more contemplative piece. Joe (Charles Dance), his face projected on a translucent scrim stretched across the entire stage, sits alone in a dingy room, tormented by a woman's voice. Unable to defend himself, his agony plays out in tiny spasms of his face, culminating in a solitary tear.
The cinematic quality of the piece overwhelms its theatricality (Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan directs) but it's undeniably gripping and Dance's command of his facial tics is remarkable. It's the lesser of the three Beckett pieces in this Sydney Festival but even then Eh Joe offers more than most plays you're likely to see this year.
An article from The Daily Telegraph, January 15, 2007
WHEN Michael Gambon was forced to relinquish the lead role of Samuel Beckett's Eh Joe at the last minute the show's producers must have been frantic.
That they managed to snare the services of English heavyweight Charles Dance (Bleak House, Gosford Park, Nicholas Nickleby) with only a matter of days to opening night is truly remarkable.While the lead role of Joe requires no words, the power of Eh Joe – originally written for television in 1965 - hangs on the lead’s ability to express his thoughts and emotions purely through his facial expressions.
This production, by Dublin’s the Gate Theatre and directed by Atom Egoyan (ATOM EGOYAN), remains truthful to the original TV script despite the change in medium.
The set is starkly simple: a dingy, almost empty room, its only furniture a single bed. As the lights go up, the room’s sole occupant - Joe, a man in his late 50s/early 60s, dressed in old pyjamas, a tatty dressing gown and worn slippers - is seated on the bed, his back to the audience.
The television conventions of the original play have been adapted well - a screen at the front of the stage initially provides the set with a foggy, almost misty aura.
Then a few minutes in, when Joe begins to battle his tormenting voice, a close-up of his face is projected onto that same screen and the actor’s every nuance is highlighted.
As mentioned earlier, Dance is a fine replacement for Gambon as the world-weary and tormented Joe. His patrician features are tailor-made to the role. Though he says no words, he nevertheless speaks volumes.
Yet, while Eh Joe is imbued with a quiet intensity, at little more than 25 minutes in total, it is not substantial enough to be touted as a stand-alone production. But if coupled with one of Beckett’s meatier plays it would have worked wonderfully as the first part of a Beckett double bill.
Nevertheless, this is a wonderful opportunity - albeit all too brief - to enjoy an actor of Charles Dance’s calibre in the flesh.
Also, be warned, Eh Joe is certainly not for those in quest of "light" viewing.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/eh-joe-review/story-e6frev39-1111112833231
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