Krapp’s Last Tape, Samuel Beckett’s classic one-act play, takes the audience on a journey through an old man’s memories. This Edinburgh Fringe production at Assembly Roxy is directed by Academy Award nominee Stockard Channing and stars David Westfield as Krapp, a man haunted by lost love, failed ambition and the younger self he does not recognise.

As the audience arrives, Krapp is already seated at his desk, surrounded by the miscellanea of a life spent hoarding both objects and memories. Caught in the spotlight, before even speaking a word, he commands the stage. Sitting and examining items in minute detail before casually discarding them over his shoulder. Unfortunately, the atmosphere was disrupted during the first 15 minutes by latecomers, opening doors, rattling seats, and the glare of staff torches.

In these early moments, unkempt, straggly-haired and bushy-bearded, Krapp appears frail and disoriented, perhaps even touched by dementia.

His first action is to eat a banana, slowly, deliberately and with relish. The theatre is small enough, that you can see a succession of emotions pass across his face: greed, guilt and an awareness of bodily decline. When he slips the remaining banana into his pocket, it becomes both an amusing prop and a temptation.

At 69, Krapp is an old man brooding over recordings made by his younger self, revisiting birthday tapes that preserve moments he can neither recover nor escape.

Westfield’s performance is faultless. He finds both pathos and comedy in the smallest physical details. The text may be spare, but Westfield makes every look and gesture count.

The desk becomes the place where Krapp reconnects with his past through the reel-to-reel recordings he has made on each birthday. The tape from his 39th year recalls his mother’s death and his urgent, doomed sexual energy, while also exposing the literary ambitions that, as the older Krapp now knows, came to nothing.

This Krapp feels like a real man, and although Westfield’s Krapp is often irritated, he also has painful self-knowledge. He may be startled by words such as “viduity”, but he is not surprised by the emotional memories of the old recordings. Listening to them has become a ritual act of masochism, a way of forcing himself to confront the hopes, desires, and aspirations he has lost.

This production offers an absorbing encounter with one of Beckett’s most haunting works. It leaves a lingering impression of a man trapped between the life he imagined and the one he has lived.

Reviewed by Nina Gardner

Four Stars.

Playing at:- Upstairs at Assembly Roxy until 31st August

Tickets and further information can be found following the link below

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/krapp-s-last-tape

Credits:

David Westfield – Krapp

Director – Stockard Channing

PR – Deborah Goodman DGPR.