EAST CALAIS – A short play, “Krapp’s Last Tape,” by Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), was featured at the Unadilla Theatre for the past two weekends.
In this solo performance, Vince Rossano was excellent as an old man in his eighties playing a recording on a tape reel he had made forty years earlier describing some of his romantic relationships. He sat at a small table and listened intently but with mixed feelings to these memories of his past life. He kept sampling sections of the tape, turning the machine off and on, sometimes skipping forward or repeating sections. His only movements other than sitting were getting up several times and taking a drink of whiskey, looking up a word he didn’t know the meaning of in the condensed version of the Oxford English Dictionary and eating half of a banana. This meant he had to convey his reactions to what he heard almost solely with changing expressions on his whole face, quite an acting challenge which he accomplished very skillfully.
Within this structure Beckett deals with fundamental questions we all face as we begin to see death on the horizon and look back over our lives as the little tape recordings (or should we say video tapes) in our minds recall the positive and negative experiences of our personal Proustian “Remembrance of Things Past.” How harshly we do judge ourselves for our failed relationships or aspirations?
There were hauntingly beautiful moments to remember as well. The script in Krapp’s tape combines both pathos and humor and as the director, Jeanne Beckwith, observed, sometimes it seems that in separating the husks from the grain of his memories, this character keeps the husks and throws away the grain.
When we look back in time to our younger days, we often realize how much we have changed. Are we wiser and happier now, or do we remain trapped in the past with regrets? How much can we let go?
Better known are some of Beckett’s other plays, such as “Happy Days” and “Waiting for Godot,” the latter having become something of a common phrase for expectations that were never fulfilled. Both of these works have been given at the Unadilla Theatre over the years since it was founded by Bill Blachly in 1979.
Born in Dublin, but living most of his life in Paris, Beckett epitomized the joke that the best English writers were Irish. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.
In “Krapp’s Last Tape,” he is certainly innovative in having a tape recorder as the central focus of the action, almost like another person.
Rossano and Beckwith solved the difficult technical problem of its separate sound by using his voice from the past recorded on his cell phone, then amplified, which he could turn on and off while pretending to run a blank reel on the tape recorder.
After the end of the play, there was an interesting discussion with the audience about the multiple meanings of this work.
Present and future productions at the Unadilla Theatre this season are, “Patience,” by Gilbert and Sullivan, which started on June 26; “Exit the King.” by Eugene Ionesco, which will begin on July 17’ and “The Importance of Being Earnest.” by Oscar Wilde, which will open on July 24. Each play will run for three weekends, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. For more information, call (802) 456-8968 or go online at unadilla.org.
David K. Rodgers
David K. Rodgers is a writer, mason and card carrying dilettante, who dabbles and babbles in art. He has lived in East Craftsbury for the past 40 years.
