Stephen Rea brings dignity to Krapp’s Last Tape in Dublin — review

Samuel Beckett’s early to mid-career work plunges us into a state of bleak and baffling existential torpor. It also includes bursts of pyrotechnic eloquence that suggest that language can at least provide some consolation in an inhospitable world.

In Krapp’s Last Tape, first staged in 1958, five years after Waiting for Godot had propelled Beckett to international fame, language’s redemptive powers have dissolved into the solitary babble of an old man struggling to remember what it was like to remember. The title itself signals a lurch towards scatological bathos. And as he loads his tape recorder at the beginning, Krapp’s fixation on the word “spool” sets the tone for a one-act monologue where words have become a tottering crutch.

In Stephen Rea’s portrayal at Dublin’s Project Arts Centre, the character nonetheless remains at one remove from physical and intellectual breakdown. Rather than draw out his “spools” like a piece of geriatric baby-talk, Rea repeats the word in a hesitant, probing tone, as if it might yet yield a shred of unexpected meaning. And when his younger self’s recorded reminiscences of his mother’s “viduity” send Krapp to the dictionary, he seems almost hopeful that some genuine enlightenment will jump from its pages.

Rea’s at once cautious and sprightly movements further add to an impression of lingering dignity. Watching him delicately peel a succession of bananas, then hurl the skins to the side of the stage, is to witness an unresolved struggle between fastidiousness and dissolution. And as he listens to the tape, with its lament for squandered potential and lost love, Rea’s Krapp retains a studied, enigmatic expression, save for a few flickers of disquiet, that evokes a heroic effort at keeping his feelings under control. Even his too-short black trousers and battered white boots look surprisingly neat here.

Rea’s aura of composure is complemented by the methodical pacing and crisply put-together design of Vicky Featherstone’s staging (which is produced by Landmark Productions). Jamie Vartan’s grey-toned, spartan set, lit by Paul Keogan in sharply defined chiaroscuro, has the flattened texture of a surrealist painting. And Kevin Gleeson’s sound design makes subtle use of echoes to amplify Krapp’s isolation. The refined aesthetic extends to the recording of Krapp in middle age, which has none of the crackle we would expect from an old reel of tape. On that point, authenticity has regrettably been sacrificed for style.

Rea made the recordings more than a decade ago. The timbre of his voice has not noticeably changed in the meantime. But there is a significant difference in accent. On the tape, Rea speaks in an affected English voice. In the flesh, Krapp’s accent wanders between the north and south of Ireland, as if, having previously adopted an alien persona, he is now trying to relocate his roots but can’t quite remember where they are.

Despite that sense of cultural dislocation, Rea’s portrayal yields a Krapp who seems to be just about holding it together. We are left with the unexpected impression that this might not be his last tape after all.

★★★★☆

To February 3, projectartscentre.ie