Eh Joe is a piece for television, written in English by Samuel Beckett, his first work for the medium. It was begun on the author's fifty-ninth birthday, 13 April 1965, and completed by 1 May. "It [was] followed by six undated typescripts (numbered 0 – 4 and 'final version').”
Despite the English version being recorded first, due to delays at the BBC, the first actual broadcast was of Elmar and Erika Tophoven's German translation, He Joe, on 13 April 1966, Beckett's sixtieth birthday, by Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Stuttgart; Beckett directed, his first credit as such. Deryk Mendel played Joe and Nancy Illig voiced the woman.
An American production of Eh Joe was directed by frequent Beckett collaborator Alan Schneider, produced by Glenn Jordan and broadcast by PBS WNDT on 18 April 1966.
The first English broadcast went out eventually on BBC2 (4 July 1966) with Jack MacGowran, for whom the play was specifically written, playing Joe (originally 'Jack' at the start of the first draft) and Siân Phillips as Voice. Beckett had asked for Billie Whitelaw but she was unavailable due to another acting commitment. Alan Gibson directed but with Beckett in attendance.
At least thirteen versions have been preserved on tape making it far and away Beckett's most produced teleplay.
It was first published in Eh Joe and Other Writings (Faber, 1967) – although the version published is closer to Typescript 3, mentioned above, than the version as broadcast.
The characters
Joe
The play opens with Joe, a grey-haired man in his late fifties, sitting alone in an archetypal Beckettian room. He is wearing an old dressing gown and a pair of carpet slippers.
Like a young child, checking for monsters, Joe methodically goes through his room. As he does so the camera follows him...
getting up, going to window, opening window, looking out, closing window, drawing curtain, standing intent. going from window to door, opening door, looking out, closing door, locking door, drawing hanging before door, standing intent. going from door to cupboard, opening cupboard, looking in, closing cupboard, locking cupboard, drawing hanging before cupboard, standing intent. going from cupboard to bed, kneeling down looking under bed, getting up, sitting down on edge of bed as when discovered, beginning to relax.
The camera cuts to a close-up of Joe. His eyes are closed, his features relaxed. Beckett indicates that the close-up should begin with the camera one yard (1 m) from his face and dolly-in gradually throughout the piece. He indicates nine breaks where the camera is allowed to move, four inches (102 mm) closer each time. By the end of the play, the camera is literally staring him in the eyes. "The numeral nine has often been associated with death", e.g. there are nine circles in Dante's vision of Hell.
As the woman begins to speak Joe opens his eyes and his face displays a look of "intentness". He is trapped, which is how Beckett referred to the room in Film; the situation here is very similar, in fact Beckett originally had Joe on a seat just like O but obviously decided that "a more telling image for a seducer would be alone on a bed". The voice utters nine short speeches during which Beckett requires the actor remain practically motionless and stares unblinkingly toward – though not directly at – the camera lens, an extraordinary demand for physical restraint to ask of any actor, though in reality there were instances where, when filming, MacGowran did close his eyes for effect (e.g. after the word “Gillette”, he closes his eyes and his face winces in pain). Only during the short gaps, while the camera moves, can he relax his gaze momentarily. Despite these unscripted breaks MacGowran found the role "the most gruelling twenty-two minutes I have ever had in my life" but he also admits it was the only time he was "wholly pleased with this work". He wrote later:
"It’s really photographing the mind. It’s the nearest perfect play for television that you could come across, because the television camera photographs the mind better than anything else".