Krapps Last Tape

Stephen Rea, Landmark Productions

Adelaide Festival

Playhouse 28 February 2025

****

Samuel Beckett’s short, minimalist one act, one man play centres on a sixty-nine year old Mr Krapp sitting in his sparse room, listening to a tape of his thirty-nine year old self. In the case of this performance, we actually hear a younger Stephen Rea as he recorded the younger Krapp’s script some years ago. This makes it truly a one-man performance.

The set is sparce and monochromatic, as befitting Beckett’s script, with a single light above a plain desk (although with an implausibly long draw) illuminated with a muted white light.

The unique feature of the play is that nearly all the speaking is done by the younger Krapp via the tape recorder, the old man of the present has little to say, aside from taking a child-like fascination with the word “spool”. Thus, it is in the reaction to the old Krapp to the tape recorder version of himself that the brilliance of Stephen Rea becomes manifest. His facial expressions and responses to his younger self are the crux of the play, from frustration, anger to the yearning for lost love.

Sometimes the simplest of productions give so much more, one concentrates on the essence of the work rather than a lavish set. This is a case in point.

Michael Prescott