“I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night…” It’s June 13, 2015 and I did see Joe Hill…”alive as you and me” the words sung by Paul Robeson as we left the theater Saint J. They made me realize I had seen Joe Hill. And I was that callow, young reporter Joe addressed throughout the play. Cowed at times by the power of Joe’s singing, by the power of his words proclaiming the plight of the worker and workers’ collective potential, I, that poor reporter, was just doing my job, seeing the waste of the condemned man. I was mesmerized and ready to join the union himself.
Could it be that Joe was innocent? Certainly he didn’t confess to me in that dark prison cell. I was glad the prison let him have a guitar to play; he sang me his songs as he told me about his life. He made me laugh at the Bosses, his own situation and at himself. I got real scared for him as his execution approached. I cried when he shouted “Fire” and he died. 
That’s my review of “Joe Hill’s Last Will.” I’m sorry for those of you who missed it. The play certainly woke me up to those “issues “ of 1915. Issues! Working men and women treated like animals. Immigrants degraded. Death to those who don’t think the way we do … Good thing we don’t have those issues today.
When John McCutcheon returned without Joe Hill’s hat at the end of the play (encore?) to sing Joe Hill’s last words, his last will, I realized he was Joe Hill for 90 minutes. I also realized we still need to work on those issues of 1915. In some ways they were issues in 1215 – remember the Magna Carta?
Can we add to John McCutcheon’s appellations of singer, songwriter, musician and storyteller one more, that of Actor? I say, “ Yes!”
~ Bruce Roberts