THEATER REVIEW | 'EH JOE'MORE ON 'Eh Joe'Words Fail Him, but Memories Can't Be Silenced

Liam Neeson is the title character in "Eh Joe," one of three works by Samuel Beckett at the Lincoln Center Festival.

By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
Published: July 19, 2008

Hey there, fans of those nasty "Saw" movies. Wanna come see a big-time movie star, Liam Neeson, get eaten alive onstage?

Oh, not literally, of course. The Lincoln Center Festival, ever in search of groundbreaking international theater, has not imported a tribe of cannibals to feast on Mr. Neeson while well-heeled patrons nod politely in the seats. It is those familiar spiritual afflictions — guilt, loneliness, existential horror — that gnaw mercilessly at Mr. Neeson's character in Samuel Beckett's "Eh Joe," which is being presented in repertory with two other evenings devoted to that Irish writer at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater, all produced by Dublin's Gate Theater.

Although it lasts just half an hour, this staging of a Beckett piece originally written for television is one of the most wholly satisfying nights I've spent at the theater this year. Remarkably, Mr. Neeson draws a transfixing portrait of a man on the edge of emotional collapse without speaking a single word.

The Canadian film and theater director Atom Egoyan created this production for the Gate, which has long made a specialty of Beckett's work. (The company took its complete cycle of Beckett's stage works to the first Lincoln Center Festival in 1996.) "Eh Joe" appears alongside a dramatization of excerpts from Beckett's novels, performed by Barry McGovern, and Ralph Fiennes in "First Love," based on a Beckett novella.

All three will also performed in succession at marathons on July 26 and 27.

Mr. Neeson's unseen co-star in "Eh Joe" is the marvelous British actress Penelope Wilton. Her role is recorded and does not begin until we have watched Mr. Neeson, shoulders hunched furtively, close himself up in the shabby room in which the play is set. (Its oppressively drab design is by Eileen Diss.)

The man onstage is a visibly haunted one. He nervously yanks open a closet door to make sure nothing lurks inside and gets down on his knees to peer under the bed before throwing himself down upon it. But of course the bedclothes can become a suffocating shroud for unquiet souls. Just as this antsy fellow is settling down in relief, a voice emerges from the dark of his anxious mind, calling him to a quiet reckoning with his past.

In cadences smooth as water lapping gently at a night shore, the voice begins by mocking his anxiety. "What's wrong with that bed, Joe?" It coolly taunts him with its ineluctable presence. "Ever think of that? ... If it went on ... The whisper in your head."

It is the voice of a former lover, come to lead Joe through a gantlet of memories of a life lived with too little care for the damage he inflicted on the women in his past. "Anyone living love you now, Joe?" the voice asks dispassionately, just a hint of laughter in its tone. "Anyone living sorry for you now?"

When this tender assault begins, a magnified image of Mr. Neeson's face appears on a scrim at the front of the stage. As the minutes squeeze past, the image grows larger as the camera closes in, clinical and cruel as fate. The face does not move, but beneath its surface we can see the words carving a path into Joe's psyche.

The eyes become black hollows at times, eerie vacancies in the livid flesh. At other moments they shine with vigilant horror, seethe with blind fury, send forth beseeching flashes of desperation. When the pain is too great, they squeeze tightly shut. Occasionally, the cheeks seem to quiver with rage or the lips begin a silent trembling, as if preparing to jabber a protest against the sound inside. But the voice will not be stilled; the guilt-ravaged mind must confront the worst.

Mr. Egoyan has called the role of Joe "the longest reaction shot that an actor can imagine." It is surely the most demanding. Mr. Neeson's concentrated intensity, from start to finish, is a breathtaking feat, all the more impressive for the minimal tools at his disposal — nary a word or movement — and the lack of histrionics. (My only quibble is with a late-coming gesture that suddenly breaks the hushed spell.)

The technical sheen of Mr. Egoyan's production enhances its effectiveness. The image on the screen has a richness of texture that lends it an eerie glow under the precise lighting design by James McConnell. Mr. Neeson's anguished face comes to resemble a drawn, tortured figure in an El Greco painting made flesh, both terrible and beautiful to behold.

It all adds up to an unforgettable experience, 30 spellbinding minutes that seem to transport you to a timeless dimension. But whether it is Beckett's words, Ms. Wilton's insidious voice or Mr. Neeson's agonized image that will haunt me most profoundly I cannot predict.

GATE/BECKETT

Eh Joe

By Samuel Beckett; directed by Atom Egoyan; designed by Eileen Diss; lighting by James McConnell. Presented by Dublin's Gate Theater, Michael Colgan, artistic director; as part of the Lincoln Center Festival 08, Nigel Redden, director. At the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, 899 10th Avenue, at 58th Street, Clinton; (212) 721-6500. Through July 26. Running time: 30 minutes.

WITH: Liam Neeson (Joe) and Penelope Wilton (Woman's Voice).

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