Forty years ago this month Krapp first shuffled onstage, banana in hand, at London's Royal Court Theatre. This shabby, nostalgic old man, who sits hunched in the gloom listening to snatches of a tape made years earlier and recording a new one, is one of Samuel Beckett's most memorable creations. This week he'll be brought to life again by Shakespearian actor Edward Petherbridge.
The Royal Shakespeare Company is bringing its touring production of Krapp's Last Tape to the RHA Downstairs in Dublin, co-directed by Petherbridge and David Hunt.
Krapp's annual birthday ritual is to revisit his past by listening to his recorded impressions and reflections from an earlier year. On this occasion, he listens to a tape made 30 years earlier, when he was 39 - the year his mother died and he ended a love affair: "I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on and she agreed, without opening her eyes."
The simple device of the reels of tape juxtaposes past and present in a series of carefully structured patterns and oppositions. As Krapp addresses and deprecates his younger self, he is looking for something from these memories that could bring meaning to the present: "Be again, be again. All that old misery. Once wasn't enough for you."
What's striking about this short, one-act play - especially coming so soon after the bleakness of Endgame - is its tone of tender poignancy and its flashes of lyricism. If the present is defined by paralysis and the advent of death, there seems just a fragile hint that the past once promised more. "Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness." But is Beckett really going to allow us this comfort?
Krapp's Last Tape opens at the RHA Downstairs, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Ely Place, on Monday, November 2nd. Booking on 01 6617166.