Samuel Beckett Krapp's Last Tape

Samuel Beckett's

 Krapp's Last Tape

Cast: John Hurt

Director:  Michael Colgan

Gate Theatre, Dublin. 

Krapp's Last Tape was written by Beckett in English, for the Northern Irish actor Patrick McGee and was first performed in London in 1958 under the direction of Donald McWhinnie. The play contains many of the elements of Beckett's 'art of failure': a body in decline and suffering; the replay and re-evaluation of memories; loneliness, the sense of immanent darkness; eloquent silences and a mind/body dualism. 

When he wrote it he described it as 'a play for one actor' and did not mention the tape recorder and Hugh Kenner tells us that at this stage he had never actually seen a reel to reel tape recorder but that the 'rumour was sufficient'.   Early critics were very taken by the way in which Beckett developed the monologue by means of the recently invented machine, and how he recognised its potential to correct and recall memories. This device allowed him to present three distinct versions of the one character, the older sixty-nine year old Krapp whom we see on stage, the recorded voice of the younger thirty-nine year old Krapp and the allusions of both of these to their younger twenty-seven to twenty-nine year old self,  whom they both deride - 'Hard to believe I ever was that young whelp! Jesus.'

The eleven page play lasts for just under an hour, indicating the importance of the silences in Beckett's work. The recordings of the younger man, and his mature reactions to them, are not simply there to 'bail out the silences'. In Krapp's Last Tape the accuracy of the machine's recordings are contrasted with Krapp's inability to remember the profound events of his life and so the voice from the machine holds significance and seems to bring about an awareness in the older man. Of course he tries to resist the awareness by drinking and by cursing 'the stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago'  but the silences indicate that perhaps he does not resist it completely. The ambiguity of the phrase 'Ah well, maybe he was right (pause) maybe he was right' seem to support this idea. Given that at sixty-nine he recalls nothing of the experience, it is likely that this awareness is temporary, that it will also be forgotten in the future, and it emphasises an idea central to Beckett's work that 'people are bloody ignorant apes'. 

In the current production at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, the voice of the thirty-nine year old Krapp is that of a younger Hurt, recorded in an earlier performance in March 2000 at the same theatre. The production emphasises the duality of light and darkness which is written into the text. The light/dark dichotomy can be seen as 'a further expression of Beckett's concern with man's basic dualism, the Cartesian separation of mind and body.' (Fletcher and Fletcher, 1985, p.120)  In this production, the lighting follows the original direction with the sole source coming from the lamp above the table. Hurt plays within this liminal space, stopping just outside the edge of his lighted area and drawing quickly back into the light, delineating it for the audience.   

The voice on tape reminds the older man of a 'memorable equinox', a day in which there is an equal amount of light and dark, and which the older Krapp had all but forgotten. This was the time when the 'shade came down' as his mother died and when he bade 'farewell to love'.  The recorded memory of this day is repeated and the lyricism of it highlighted by the repetition. 

I asked her to look at me and after a few moments (pause) she did, but the eyes just slits because of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. (pause) Let me in. (pause) We drifted in among the flags and stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! (pause) I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently up and down, and from side to side. 

The rhythm of the water, caught here by the younger man hints at his ability as a writer,  yet at the same time we see his inability to grasp the possibility of love.

John Hurt.  Gate Theatre, Dublin. 2013.

Fletcher and Spurling draw attention to this poetic quality when they write that 'sheltered under his most rebarbative title - with its triple allusion to excrement, disillusion and machinery - lies Beckett's most lyrical and tender play.' ( 1972, p.88) But Krapp's Last Tape is  also shot through with moments of humour and bathos. We have the clown-like business with the banana skins at the opening of the play, the description of Krapp wearing 'Rusty black ... trousers too short for him [and] ...a surprising pair of dirty white boots, size ten at least' and the irony of the older man, laughing with and at his younger selves. 

Hurt switched easily and comfortably between these lyrical and whimsical moments to the realisation of his loss and to the 'profound gloom' and 'misery' of his condition.  Juxtaposed with this lyricism and humour is the threat of the darkness and what it might contain.  In the 1969 Berlin production, Beckett, directing Martin Held, told his actor that the reason Krapp glances behind is that 'death is standing behind him and unconsciously he's looking for it [because] it's the end … he's through with his work, with love and with religion'. Hurt sustains this moment of uneasiness for just the right length of time to draw our attention to it, before moving on with the action of the play. 

In this memorable performance John Hurt held the audience in the opening scene as he sat silent and immobile for at least two minutes, giving us that sense, which we often find in Beckett's plays, that what is on stage is surrounded by a vast silence and darkness. The only thing that holds this emptiness back is the light and the voice of the actor. The fading out of that light and voice at the end of the play are a powerful reminder of the common fate of those born astride the grave. The death of the light in this production left the audience moved and subdued to such a degree that  that it delayed our ability to applaud the performance. When the house lights came up the spell was broken and Hurt received a well deserved standing ovation. 

Reviewed by Ann Fallon.

Before Vanishing - four plays by Samuel Beckett.

Before Vanishing

four pieces by

Samuel Beckett

at

(The New Theatre, Essex St) 

Until March 16th, 2013.

http://www.thenewtheatre.com/tnt_php/scripts/page/show.php?show_id=111&gi_sn=5142e450016e9%7C0

Before Vanishing, made up of four of Beckett's short pieces for theatre, and a fifth piece, a translation into Irish of Come and Go, is well worth catching before it does vanish. Including Ohio Impromptu, Footfalls, That Time and Come and Go, the presentation each piece by Mouth On Fire Theatre Company was superb.

Beckett is always fascinating to hear, but what came across to me about these pieces is how visually striking they are.  Everything in this production contributes to series of unforgettable images. In Ohio Impromptu Marcus Lamb and Nick Devlin are almost exact images of each other as one reads and the other listens to a story of loss and regret. The two actors, with long grey hair and dark costumes sit at a brightly lit table in an otherwise totally dark space. It becomes obvious that Reader and Listener are two aspects of the same person in much the same way as Krapp (in another play by Beckett coming soon to Dublin) is presented as a voice from his past on tape and, bodily, the wasted man as he is now. This is a motif Beckett uses again and again throughout his work. In this beautiful presentation, it is a moment on stage that stays with audience for a long time.

Melissa Nolan plays May in Footfalls and she brings to the part an intensity that will not allow us to take our eyes off her. Her costume, her movement, and the quality of her voice work together in what is a mesmerising performance. Geraldine Plunkett's voice as the unseen mother helps to make this a haunting piece of work. I must mention the lighting in Footfalls. It is one of Beckett's most difficult pieces to light because, in this play in particular, lighting adds an essential ingredient to the meaning of the play.  I was very impressed with the production company here, Mouth On Fire, who provided exactly the effect which Beckett wanted.

Marcus Lamb is the disembodied face that floats above us in That Time. Visually stark, it can take the audience a moment to make sense of what they are seeing.  As we watch we realise that we are looking down upon a man on his deathbed, who is gasping for his last breath, or 'last but one, but one'. We hear voices trying to put together several repeated strands of a story and as he fades the voices fade too, eventually vanishing into the darkness and silence which he came from.

Come And Go is one of Beckett's more accessible short works. It is carefully choreographed by Beckett and director Cathal Quinn, who did a wonderful job in all the pieces, is particularly good here. So are the three women played by Geraldine Plunkett, Melissa Nolan and Jennifer Laverty . Their movements are flawless and manage to convey the beautiful sadness expressed in the last line of the play delivered as  the women are holding hands, none of which has a ring: "I can feel the rings."

This last piece is played twice, first in English and then - appropriately for Seachtain na Gaeilge (Irish week)- as Teacht Is Imeacht.  Translated by Gabriel Rosenstock,  Teacht is Imeacht worked very well in itself, but I felt it might have been better presented first in Irish then in English. Having seen it in English, the audience is I think, too freshly familiar with it to see it all again. Hearing it in Irish first would mean most of the audience would still have something new to get out of a second performance. But that small criticism aside the overall presentation by Mouth On Fire Theatre Company was superb.

Review - Seamus Gallagher.

All My Sons directed by Michael O'Meara

All My Sons

Arthur Miller

 Conor Bredin (George), Des Slowey (Joe), Imelda McDonagh (Kate) and Colin Carpenter (Chris).

Directed by: Michael O'Meara.

 

Reviewed by Seamus Gallagher.

The original production of All My Sons, Arthur Miller's first successful play, opened in New York in 1947, directed by Elia Kazan. In the play Miller looks at the idyllic suburban life many Americans aspired to following the Depression and the Second World War. More importantly, Miller applies what he has learned from Greek tragedy and from Ibsen to explore the sordid sacrifices made by ordinary people in order to have this prosperous way of life. In All My Sons many such sacrifices are made and are either covered up or justified by self-deceiving reasons. Joe Keller sacrifices his business partner Steve: he destroys his life and tears his family apart so that he and his family might be comfortable. The lives of twenty one pilots are sacrificed so that Joe's business might continue to operate and make money. And, throughout the play, truth is sacrificed. People - not just Joe - lie and deceive themselves, their families and their neighbours in order to achieve the American Dream. The power of Miller's modern tragedy is the way in which it gradually strips away these lies, keeping the final truth from many of the characters and from the audience right up to the final moments of the play.

This production by SPARC, directed by Michael O' Meara succeeds in setting up the too-peaceful suburban scene right from the opening. The clean white set (designed by Brian O' Connor) fronted by a neat lawn is disturbed, deliberately, by the jagged shape of the storm-struck tree. Patrick Burke's lighting gives up the feel of a peaceful, sunny Sunday morning. His attention to colour and shade will lead us over the course of the play from this sunshine into the twilight and the dark which will engulf the Kellers. Fionnuala Nig Shamhrain's costumes and Elaine Patton's sound combine with the set and the lights to bring us back to 1940's America.

Felicity Kearney (Sue) and Carol Broderick (Ann).

The actors used a very natural, almost at times a method-acting style of presentation. This helped build the calm, casual atmosphere with which the play begins, and allowed them to gradually introduce and build the tension right to the end of the play. Michael O' Meara's pacing helped keep this shifting of mood under control. Des Slowey and Imelda Mc Donagh played Joe and Kate, and were particularly convincing. We felt for both of them even as we realised the lie they have been living for years. Colin Carpenter gave us the unsettling sense of being rather than acting as the complex Chris. He caught the nuances of this central role admirably. Carol Broderick played Ann, a difficult role: she wants to join the Keller family by marrying Chris, yet she knows that Joe Keller caused the death of his other son and her first love, Larry. Conor Bredin was a very good George, Ann's brother, who appears only once, and has to carry the plot in a crucial scene. The neighbours provide the context in which the tragedy unfolds, and they show us the typical way in which a community colludes in a piece of mendacity nobody wants to talk about openly. Sue Bayliss (Felicity Kearney) and her husband Jim (John Clarke) live their own lie, and Sue hates the Kellers for being "The Holy Family" and for inspiring Jim to pursue his ideals rather than provide for the family. Brian Comaskey brought a welcome comic touch to the part of Frank, while Fionnuala Nig Shamhrain (as Frank's wife Lydia) beautifully, with a touch, showed us what might have been between herself and George had the Keller tragedy not happened. Joe Gallagher  played with great vivacity the role of Bert, the neighbour kid who plays policeman under the command of jail - keeper Joe Keller.

When the lights came down at the end of this deeply affecting piece of theatre, the audience sat in silence for a long moment before breaking into applause. This play might be sixty-six years old, but it still carries the power to shock us. 

Continues in St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra. Friday 8th February at 8pm. Final matinee performance, Saturday 9th at 3 pm.

The Dark Earth and the Light Sky

The Dark Earth and the Light Sky

Written by: Nick Dear.

Playing at : The Almeida Theatre, Islington - Until 12th January, 2013.

Reviewed By Pete Lawler.

I have the utmost admiration and respect for playwrights brave enough to attempt to reincarnate well known poets, Shelley’s ‘unacknowledged legislators of the world,’ on stage in order to shed some light on the mysterious cult status their lives seem to acquire; or use that mystery and status to explore some of the issues of our age. The last time I saw it happen was at The Unicorn Theatre in 2010, in Stephen McDonald’s play, Not About Heroes, which explored with beautiful subtlety that much speculated upon relationship (not least of all in Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy) that has so enraptured the popular imagination between war poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.

Nick Dear does something remarkably similar in his latest offering, The Dark Earth and the Light Sky presenting a relationship between two gifted artists, one inspiring the other. But Dear focuses on a far more unheralded and underrated poet – at least in his own lifetime – and arguably one whose poetry was less about war and more about poetry and beauty, Edward Thomas (Pip Carter) and his friendship with the American literary colossus Robert Frost (Shaun Dooley).

In doing so, there are a host of contrasts that make Dear’s work stand out. It is far more about Thomas’ love of the English countryside, realised with evocative simplicity through Bob Crowley’s understated design. The rural pastures of Gloucestershire become the terms through which Thomas negotiates a sense of self and a sense of Englishness, his existential struggle to articulate and define who he is. It is an enthralling personal struggle, with the encouraging Frost, played with a compelling sense of righteous certainty and pomp by Dooley, as his foil through which he comes to terms with himself and his eventual decision to enlist in the army at the age of 37, and fight in The Great War, a decision that would lead to his death at The Battle of Arras in 1917.

The interplay between Frost and Thomas is precise and as funny as it is poignant, the chemistry between the two sustained with natural ease and an adept sense of timing. But the real and deep sense of pathos comes from Thomas’ widow, Helen, on whose memoirs, much of the play is based. It is her accounts of her husband, the tenderness between the two of them, her Job-like enduring patience and moving grief later on that stir our hearts in this story. Hattie Morahan is spellbinding in this role, with a ferocious and unrelenting vivacity that perpetually draws you further into her own struggle to make Edward understood as a person and as an artist.

Frostian purists might not be pleased. Moving though I found this piece, I felt at times that there was a worthy struggle taking place onstage between constantly questioning and self-critical Englishness and a smugly certain American way of seeing the world that in the end, presents Frost as a distanced pontificating coward who refuses to accommodate other ways of perception into his own worldview. The play’s shortcoming is that it is too worthily bent on ennobling Thomas. This purpose magnifies itself into a debate about two different ways of seeing responsibility and the world, a debate that sits awkwardly when it is most pronounced on stage, reducing characters to symbols, near-caricatures, especially in the case of Frost, the brash, lordly American.

This is a human story though and whatever worthiness stumbles around the corners of its parameters is outweighed by performances that give us a beautiful depth of humanity and bring to life for us the poetic genius of Thomas.

The Dark Earth and the Light Sky is playing in London at the Almeida Theatre, Islington, until January 12th, 2013.

Pete Lawler, was born in Pennsylvania and is now living and working in London. His blog 'The American Londoner' can be viewed here:

http://theamericanlondoner.com/

Fight Night Gavin Kostick

Rise Productions'

Fight Night

by 

Gavin Kostick

Performed by:  Aonghus Og McAnally

Directed by:  Bryan Burroughs.

THEATRE UPSTAIRS @

Lannigan's, Eden Quay - 086 244 9511.

Lunchtime only 1pm until Saturday, 3rd November.

"After 3 long months on the road, Fight Night now enters its 

final week, playing lunchtimes at Theatre Upstairs, 1pm daily 

until Saturday. This is your last ever chance to see the 

show in Dublin. Come see for yourself what all 

the hype is about."

- facebook.com/riseproductionsireland

Reviewed by Seamus Gallagher.

Fight Night is pure theatre. A small intimate venue, a beautifully crafted script and a wonderful performance.  Whatever magic it is that visits when any good piece of theatre come alive, does the rest.

Gavin Kostick's script makes us laugh, its beautifully written moments of tenderness move us, and most of all it keeps us waiting for what happens next. It convinces us of the reality of the life unfolding before us. Although I have little interest in boxing Fight Night brought me effortlessly into the world of Dan Junior and his father (Dan Senior) for whom boxing is everything. Although firmly set in that world, the play is of course about much more than boxing. That "much more" begins with the birth of Dan Junior's son who, significantly for this family, is not named Dan. The arrival of Jordan into Dan Junior's life brings him back to boxing, back to his moment of failure six years previously, and back to his conflict with his father with whom he hasn't spoken since that moment. Becoming a father brings Dan Junior face to face with Dan Senior in a struggle for which boxing is a perfect metaphor. 

The only actor on the stage is Aonghus Og McAnally. In his podcasts for Rise Productions (the first podcast went out a year ago today, coincidentally) he speaks about the intense physical preparation he undertook for this play and from the moment the lights come up we can see what he is taking about. He skips, shadow boxes, uses weights, does press-ups throughout the entire play - while delivering his lines. The fast physical work of a boxer sets the pace of the play and this is contrasted with moments of intense stillness. 
In one of these moments Aonghus Og plays both Dan Junior and his partner Michelle, as they work through the emotional climax of their relationship. A simple change of body stance with a slight shift in lighting indicates that they are talking in her car one moment and sitting up in bed the next, while a subtle facial gesture  enables him to move effortlessly into the character of Dan Senior. Throughout the play, he keeps the stage alive with these characters allowing us to feel their pain, their frustrations and their hopes. 

The intimacy of the venue helps bring out all these things in Fight Night. In the ring there is nowhere to hide and on this sparse stage, Dan Junior cannot hide from the audience which he addresses directly throughout the play, any more than he can hide from himself.  

This is a brilliant show from Rise Productions and I look forward to their next play, Two//Stroke, which is currently in development.  

I also look forward to my next visit to Theatre Upstairs @ Lannigans, a vibrant venue founded by Karl Shiels, Andy Cummins and Paul Walker. I won't have to wait long: Donal O Kelly's Alliliu Fionnuala kicks off there on Monday next, 5 November. 

In the meantime, there are two performances of Fight Night before Aonghus Og hangs up his gloves: Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd November at 1pm. Be there.

Griswold by Arnold Thomas Fanning

Griswold 

by 

Arnold Thomas Fanning.

The world changed when the twin towers disappeared form the New York City skyline. For two Irish illegal immigrants, Taidhg and Hed, this is painfully true. they had 'good jobs' in those towers - they cleaned the windows; now they are living in a squalid room with no income. Since 9/11 'things have tightened up' and it is almost impossible for an illegal to get work.

Griswold is a dark play, and in the darkness lies the humour. The relationship between Taidh and Hed is tender and savage by turns.  When Taidgh refers to a 'skip' Hed corrects him: 'Over here, it's a dumpster.' A 'lift' is an 'elevator' and so it goes throughout the play. Taidhg is the tougher of the two, refusing to integrate and determined to take what he can, and if he is going to stay he has no intention of merely surviving. 'I didn't come here to be poor.' Hed knows that survival means assimilation. He has been traumatised by 9/11 but when he is forced to break out of his shell he also wants to make something of himself. What, or who, that something might be is flexible.

It is a shame that Dublin's Focus Theatre had to close its venue in Pembroke Place, but it is heart lifting to see the company continue the quality of work produced by its founder, Deirdre O'Connell. The New Theatre is well suited to the kind of work this company specialises in. This production was beautifully directed by Joe Devlin, and the acting by Shane Gately and Patrick O'Donnell was riveting.

Reviewed by: Seamus Gallagher.