Review: KRAPP’S LAST TAPE at The Dunstan Playhouse

Review by Lisa Lanzi

Samuel Beckett, poet, novelist and playwright, is the master of understatement. There are many silences and pauses within his scripts as well as poetic rhythms within the text. The silences illustrate rich moments of subtle human behaviour like shortcomings or even realisations. Beckett is also very deliberate and eloquent about stage directions and for the most part, this production stays true to that vision.

Pierre Chabert who played Krapp in Paris under Beckett's direction in 1975 says, "How can a play which is based on the act of listening be made to work in the theatre? Listening is here communicated by the look. It is literally the eye which is listening." In this iteration of the play Stephen Rea is the compellingly unpleasant Krapp and his performance is masterful - particularly in those pregnant pauses - perfecting the ‘performance’ of listening with a subtlety that still communicates so much variety.

Krapp’s Last Tape is Beckett’s third play, written in 1958 under the working title The Magee Monologue for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee, the first to play the character. There have been many famed productions with the likes of John Hurt, Rick Cluchey, Michael Gambon, and Harold Pinter and now Rea sits among those interpreters. Indeed, Rea prophetically made recordings of the ‘younger’ Krapp’s lines some twelve years ago in the hope he might one day be invited to perform the work. Anne Clarke from Landmark Productions (one of Ireland’s leading theatre producers) and Rea’s long-time collaborator, director Vicky Featherstone, are the instigators behind this production.

Featherstone has stayed true to the writing and to Beckett’s stage directions for this adaptation. We experience a more creaky, crestfallen Krapp compared to the sometimes overly cantankerous choices made for the character, yet the anger does seep out as a welcome tone shift. Costume designer, Katie Davenport keeps faithful to the defining costume (also specified by Beckett) with the large, dirty white shoes, narrow black trousers, crumpled white shirt, and baggy sleeveless waistcoat. The choice to amplify Krapp’s footsteps as he shuffles to and from ‘the kitchen’, out of sight of the audience, gave pause at first but accentuated the humour as we accepted the trope.

The figure is slightly less dishevelled than others have styled him and a more muted, abstract approach to the surroundings serves to allow focus on the action and acting. Lighting from Paul Keogan and set by Jamie Vartan are minimalist, slightly absurd (fittingly) with the table placed downstage so that an ocean of dark space surrounds a sparse island of loneliness as Krapp interacts with his machine. Other productions of the play have used very crowded ‘hoarder-style’ set and props to surround the character - I much prefer this simple approach. The track to the ‘kitchen’ is a diagonal traverse upstage right to a plain, illuminated opening. Rea’s physicality is key to the development of this character, who essentially says very little. Graced with a stooped, hurried but stumbling gait as if the man is about to topple forward, we gather a suggestion of perhaps some painful arthritis, or simply an aging body that sits for too long. Other thoughtfully choreographed gestures demonstrate the deficits a person at 69 might experience in eyesight, hearing, grasping and using tools. Again, the mastery paired with restraint in this depiction is next level.

On his 69th birthday our protagonist is listening on an ancient reel to reel player to a tape recorded when he was 39 years of age. Waves of different emotions tumble out as Krapp reacts to his younger self’s words and ponderings. We feel each moment of scorn, envy, sadness, and confusion, all presented without obvious artifice by Rea. He laughs raspingly at some words, scoffs at others, and sometimes growls with recognition of opportunities lost or overlooked. There is palpable regret alongside cynical judgement but ultimately, we recognise the universality of ageing and the irretrievable nature of time. However the choices each individual makes about how to age and embrace change are truly personal, and Krapp does not happily countenance “the sour cud and the iron stool” of frailty.

A tragic, wry comedy, Krapp’s Last Tape is a ‘must see’ if you love theatre, particularly with Stephen Rea in the role. Full of Beckett devices like repetition of words, phrases, and actions, and existing in a frozen moment of time that a viewer knows will surge bleakly ahead for this person as soon as the play ends.