Theatre / Reviews
Review: Krapp’s Last Tape, Tobacco Factory Theatres – ‘A haunting production likely to move you profoundly’
It is almost too perfect a metaphor to see Krapp’s Last Tape, a play fundamentally concerned with decay, staged against the industrial aesthetic of Tobacco Factory Theatres. It is a rare treat when venue and play align so particularly, and this production of Beckett’s quietest play has been whispering in my ear since the applause.
Directed by Stockard Channing and performed by David Westhead, this touring production is a confident and polished one.
Westhead’s Krapp is a haunting figure. Sitting alone with his tape recorder, he re-encounters his younger self; loves and frustrations and aspirations are played aloud for the audience as Westhead stares out into the seating bank.
Westhead’s performance is a masterclass in diminishment: the withering body, the weakened voice, the anguished face shadowed in a flickering half-light of self-recognition as his long-dead dreams are remembered.
Having toured former jails and dusty factories, this is a production conscious of space. The sense of impermanence intrinsic to the script is carefully upheld and implied. Krapp’s few possessions are given the quality of relics: an old desk; reels of tape; a banana.
It is nevertheless striking how little this production imposes itself upon the text. Beckett’s repetitions and pauses are trusted; the audience is never fully sure of if, or when to laugh. When the inevitable laughter does come, it is clipped, as though we fear we risk shattering something precious.
The most striking and painful moments of the play are the chuckles from Krapp himself, which quickly curdle into something resembling self-disgust as he limps off stage to drink alcohol before returning to his desk.
The cumulative effect of all this is a lasting one. Beckett’s haunting masterpiece is treated exceptionally well here, in a production likely to move you profoundly.
Krapp’s Last Tape is at Tobacco Factory Theatres on 27-28 April at 7.30pm. Visit www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com for tickets.
Main photo: Wilton Pictures Ltd
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