KRAPP'S LAST TAPE To 3 October.

Nottingham.

KRAPP’S LAST TAPE
by Samuel Beckett.

Lakeside Arts Centre To 3 October 2009.
Runs 1hr No interval.
Review: Alan Geary: 2 October.

No wonder it’s back: it’s better than ever.
Kenneth Alan Taylor is back at Nottingham’s Lakeside Arts Centre with Krapp’s Last Tape - same production, same director (Matt Aston) - and it’s better than ever.

Krapp is an old man, a failed writer. In his all-black study - desk, chair, waste basket and an over-hanging light - he sits, clad in boiler-suit, listening to snatches of monologue he recorded in earlier years. Then he records his last reel-to-reel tape.

The combination of Samuel Beckett and Taylor makes it all intensely moving.

Beckett’s over-arching theme is, as ever, the absurdity of existence. But Taylor brings out the bitter-sweetness of ageing and memory - and wasted opportunity. Krapp has forgotten where he’s secreted two bananas (his favourite treat) yet recalls in exquisite detail an evening he spent on the river with a woman way back.

Krapp is beautifully observed by Taylor: the way he drags himself around the stage, the animal glee with which he eats his bananas, the lonely old man’s uncouthness. There’s a moving contrast between the youthfulness of Krapp’s recorded voice and the live, old man’s, voice.

Lighting is an outstanding feature: when Krapp is at his desk it emphasises his deadly whiteness and the death-mask quality of his face; and when he’s off-stage to take a swig from a bottle we can see his shadow on the opposite wall.

It’s no wonder this in-house production is back at the Lakeside: it deserves to be.

Krapp: Kenneth Alan Taylor.

Director: Matt Aston.
Designer: Mark Walters.
Lighting: James Farncombe.
Sound: Paul Steer.

2009-10-06 00:22:15