KRAPP’S LAST TAPE

Cockpit Theatre

★★★½

“a fascinatingly original and deeply resonant take on Beckett’s classic monologue”

Krapp’s Last Tape, by Samuel Beckett, follows an aging, solitary man who spends his 69th birthday evening – as he has spent so many before it – listening to tape recordings he made decades earlier and revisiting the reflections of his younger self.

Krapp’s annual ritual is to record a tape reflecting on who he once was and speculating about what might lie ahead. Now, however, he has nothing good to say about the man he has become: a figure living on bananas and drink, once physically excessive in all things, now reduced to a life where only his sexual appetite has dwindled into near nothingness.

This short run production at the Cockpit Theatre has drawn national attention because its solo performer was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Peter Marinker, 85, is best known for his distinctive voice work, primarily from BBC radio drama. Using reel to reel tapes Marinker recorded when he last played Krapp in 1983, Dave Wybrow’s sensitive production and direction shapes these archival materials into a fascinatingly original and deeply resonant take on Beckett’s classic monologue.

Live in ear prompts from the visible stage manager, Marta Fossati, subtly guide Marinker through the performance, accompanied by screen captions that both quite deliberately highlight the production’s preoccupation with memory and the act of remembering. At times, this does pull focus and places the actor more prominently in view than the character, yet Marinker still offers us a compelling performance that lingers long after. The physical decline is etched into his body and demeanour. “Perhaps my best years are gone… but I wouldn’t want them back,” the character says. Krapp’s final stillness reveals the line for what it is: a self protective fiction. He did want those years back: like all of us, he is more governed by self deception than he would ever admit.

Beckett’s contrast of light and dark is handled with a softer touch here than in many productions of this classic short play. Even so, the browns, blacks and greys of Duncan Henderson’s production design and fabrication create a muted, almost monochrome world, underscoring how little colour remains in Krapp’s life.

Chris Lincé’s lighting reinforces this muted palette. It’s not as dim as in other productions I’ve seen, which slightly misses the opportunity to underline the extent of Krapp’s decline, and yet Beckett’s equation of late evening with late life still comes through.

Peter Marinker has a long history with Beckett, and he draws out both the humour and the sadness in the role. Yet one wonders whether an audience so aware of the production’s circumstances felt fully able to relax into the comedy. In particular, the classic Beckett clowning of Krapp’s banana business, which Marinker handles with ripe comic timing.

Perhaps inevitably, the production feels more like a meditation on a man recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s performing a play about the fragility of memory than a fuller exploration of Beckett’s other themes, such as regret and isolation. Even so, it remains a rich and resonant interpretation of Krapp’s Last Tape, and one that fully earned the standing ovation it received at the second curtain call.

Krapp’s spool of life is almost fully wound, yet whether “last” means final or merely “most recent” remains a question many productions of this one act monologue continue to grapple with. What is certain is that, despite his age and condition, Peter Marinker still has plenty left to give – and he will for some time yet.

KRAPP’S LAST TAPE

Cockpit Theatre

Reviewed on 2nd September

by Robert West

Photography by Chris Lincé for Stagefright Film

KRAPP’S LAST TAPE

★★★★

“a haunting homage that keeps Poe vividly, painfully present”

Scott Robinson, an American actor, writer and producer, delivers an accomplished performance as the troubled writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe in Last Call an atmospheric hour-long blend of poetry, music and storytelling. Framed around the final moments of Poe’s life, the piece begins not in the theatre but in the bar – an apt setting for a man long reported to have struggled with alcohol. Here, Poe introduces himself to us with disarming warmth. He is confused, certainly, but not the caricatured madman or hopeless drunk of popular imagination. Instead, Robinson presents a man on the cusp of a second chance, speaking of his intention to remarry.

Once we move into the studio space, Poe’s geniality remains, but it is joined by loneliness and a deep sense of torment. Robinson guides us through an edited version of Poe’s life, interspersed with readings from his poems and nods to his wider body of work. The grief, loss and ghosts of the past haunt this Poe just as his stories would later haunt generations of readers.

Robinson’s Poe is warm, witty and tormented, a refreshingly human take on a literary giant. His portrayal does not lean into the anxious, unreliable narrator familiar from Poe’s short stories. Instead, what we see is a subtler, more human figure – a choice that suits the intimacy of Camden People’s Theatre studio space.

The sparse set enhances the haunting mood. Browns dominate, with a single glowing yellow lantern at the forefront inviting us to sit “deep into the darkness peering” as Poe rifles through his faded cream papers and his hoard of lingering memories. It is a minimalist staging, but everything has purpose, and the dark costume design of Jevyn Nelms fits seamlessly within it.

Allison Casey’s sound design, paired with original music by Dale Stuckenbruck, conjures noises both real and imagined as fragments of Poe’s past drift in and out like half-remembered dreams. Tina Marie Seera, James Smillie and Morgan DiTaranto provide recorded vocal textures that break up the tone, while Robinson punctuates his own performance with snaps, claps, and slams that sustain the tension.

Jacqueline Scaletta’s lighting design is subtle yet bold when required. Blue lamp light and sudden washes of red during Poe’s more grotesque recollections add emotional colour without overwhelming the space.

For those familiar with Poe’s work, Last Call offers particular pleasures. A must see for Poe fans, the solo show is rich with references, readings and atmospheric detail. Robinson references well known works such as The Tell-Tale Heart and delivers a compelling reading of The Raven. Shannon Patterson’s direction keeps the piece tightly constructed and well paced, yet it ultimately feels more like a reverent portrait of Poe than a deeper interrogation of the human condition, leaving us questioning why this story is being told now, and by this version of Poe.

Still, that is a minor quibble. The piece fits the fringe festival ethos beautifully and would sit just as comfortably at literary festivals. Poe – who spent most of his life in financial hardship and achieved global, lasting fame only after his death – thanks the audience for keeping him alive as the final poem, the mournful Annabel Lee, closes the evening with a reminder of the love and loss that shaped his life, and the dilemmas of judgement and criticism that shaped his legacy.

The play is a haunting homage that keeps Poe vividly, painfully present, and is to be recommended.

Tag Archives: Robert West

KRAPP’S LAST TAPE

★★★½

Cockpit Theatre

KRAPP’S LAST TAPE

Cockpit Theatre

★★★½

“a fascinatingly original and deeply resonant take on Beckett’s classic monologue”