Krapp's Last Tape
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Krapp's Last Tape is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett. Originally written in English in 1958, Beckett wrote it after having heard a reading of his novel, Molloy, as performed by Irish actor Patrick Magee. He was apparently taken with the actor’s “cracked” voice, and wrote the piece with Magee in mind.[1]
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[edit] Synopsis
Krapp is an aging man who records his diary into a tape recorder. He finds a tape, "box three, spool five", in which the voice of his younger self recounts details about his life at that time.
Krapp is dissatisfied with his younger self on listening: he feels he was pompous and had misaligned priorities — Krapp listens particularly to his younger self recounting his past loves (and perhaps sexual encounters, but this is not explicitly stated), especially with one woman, once on a barge.[citation needed]
Krapp finally records a reel in which he reflects on the experience of listening to his younger self – "Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago" – before wrenching it off the recorder.
[edit] Other
The main theme of the play is endings, with the very title implying that Krapp will not live to (or want to) record another tape. The play is also a metaphor for the end of history: all is lost - all we hear on the tapes, the fragments of the past, are nonsensical, dubious, devoid of meaning. As is Krapp's current life: he bitterly implies a half-hearted attempt of intercourse with a prostitute.
The old Krapp sings: "Now the day is over,/Night is drawing nigh-igh,/Shadows--(coughing, then almost inaudible)--of the evening/Steal across the sky."
The great problem with what Beckett calls "loss of meaning" is that it works in retrospect - once life loses meaning, the past does as well. There is no salvation, as the old Krapp recalls going to a church recently, where he "Went to sleep and fell off the pew."
The banana is apparently a symbol for repressed sexuality, with the young Krapp saying: "Fatal things for a man with my condition." The old Krapp still indulges in them, even slips on the peel and falls,which also presents the irony in the play.
This is also a story of "regret". Krapp found true love but left his lover in order to pursue his writing career. Regrettably, he fails as an author - only selling 17 copies of his "great work" - and has lost out on the chance to be happy.
[edit] Parody
The play was memorably parodied in the television sketch comedy The Fast Show, in which Arthur Atkinson, a music hall comedian, played an altogether more stoic version of Krapp.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Text of the play
- Short clip 1 and Short clip 2 of a screen version of Krapp's Last Tape (dir. Tom Skipp).
- Krapp's Last Tape LP on UbuWeb.
| The Plays of Samuel Beckett |
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| Stage Plays: Act Without Words I, Act Without Words II, Breath, Catastrophe, Come and Go, Eleutheria (posthumous), Endgame, Footfalls, Happy Days, Krapp's Last Tape, Not I, Ohio Impromptu, A Piece of Monologue, Play, Rockaby, Rough for Theatre I, Rough for Theatre II, That Time, Waiting for Godot, What Where Radio Plays: All That Fall, Cascando, Embers, The Old Tune, Rough for Radio I, Rough for Radio II, Words and Music Television Plays: ...but the clouds..., Eh Joe, Ghost Trio, Nacht und Träume, Quad Screenplays: Film |
