![]() But it’s one that can be read over and over to discover new meanings and new insights. Indeed the older Krapp describes the younger version as a “stupid bastard” and finds it “hard to believe I was ever as bad as that”.Įssentially this is a play about memory, sexuality, the purpose of life, and death. What emerges is that despite the passing of time - 30 years to be precise - Krapp does not seem to have lead a very fulfilling or productive life and his best memories are snatches of stolen moments, whether it be walking the dog or making love to a woman, from the past. In his tape recorder he finds an earlier tape, one that was made when he was 39, and so he listens to it in bursts - fastforwarding it in places, rewinding it in others - while he takes notes in the present. In Krapp’s Last Tape an elderly world-weary man sits at a desk to make an annual recording on his birthday. Since then everyone from Albert Finney to John Hurt have traipsed the boards, playing the sole character of this one-man play. The play was first performed in October 1958 by Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Is it possible to say anything that hasn’t already been said about Samuel Beckett’s much-produced, much-loved play Krapp’s Last Tape? Type the title into Google and you’ll get more than 90,000 entries, which isn’t bad for such a slim volume. ![]() Fiction – paperback Faber and Faber 39 pages 2001. ![]()
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