Krapp’s Last Tape

Ardhowen Theatre, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh Aug 24-26 8.30pm (Aug 26 27 mat 3.30pm) £25/£20 048-66323110 happy-days-enniskillen.com

“Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for 30 years ago,” growls Krapp, the lugubrious birthday boy of Samuel Beckett’s short play, who records his thoughts and reviews previous entries each year on the occasion. The idea of the play, both bleak and amusing, is that our identities are not constant, but subject to failing memories, shifting desires, a slip on a banana skin. Still, the cliche remains that Beckett’s dramas are themselves unchanging, sealed into shape by his stage directions and the legal pressure of his estate, which this performance by legendary theatre director Robert Wilson (pictured) ought to challenge.

For decades, Wilson has been best known for experimentation and iconoclasm, from 1976’s Einstein on the Beach with Philip Glass to 2002’s Woyzeck with Tom Waits, but his treatment of Beckett is faithful to the text while overlaying the play with his own style and sensibility. Beckett’s play is itself an experiment with recording technology, and Wilson’s treatment introduces a broader range of sounds to serve as his co-players. As the centrepiece production of the inaugural Happy Days festival, whose programme of events is refreshingly imaginative, that seems like a fitting honour to Beckett.

Just like Krapp’s recordings, his works don’t belong in a time capsule; they are always waiting to spring new surprises.

Can’t See That? Catch This

All That Fall, St Macartins Hall, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh