Edinburgh review: Krapp's Last Tape (Church Hill Theatre)

In Samuel Beckett‘s tiny but mighty play, the solo actor barely has a word to say over the one-hour running time. But what a lot he has to express. In the hands of an accomplished performer, Krapp can demonstrate everything from personal, poignant sadness, to slapstick silliness, to a suffocating sense of how the world continues on without us, rendering our little lives oblique and irrelevant. It’s a beautifully wrought, delicate and funny elegy about age, a life lived and lost loves.

Here, veteran Beckett interpreter Barry McGovern plays Krapp and he cuts a recognisably morose, shuffling figure but also infuses the character with a distinct, engaging sense of mischief. His wild white hair catches the light of the lamp over his desk as he fiddles with his recorder, on which he plays back tapes of himself talking from the past about the past.

It is set in a kind of liminal space between life and death where perspective, regret, sadness and longing all are hanging about in the darkness beyond the centre of the stage. Krapp stomps back and forth through two rooms, he drinks whiskey, eats one, two, three bananas and sits and listens. There are two Krapps here, the present one – the one we see – and a younger version which we only hear. Krapp rails at his past self’s overblown ego. He pauses, lightly, as he hears himself boldly say he wouldn’t have his days of youth back for anything.

With a piece this famous – and so incredibly prescribed – it’s hard to bring much new to it. But McGovern does. He eats his bananas with a wry sense of fun, his mouth an O with the curved white fruit hanging down from it. When he drops the skins and then walks over them, he knows we’re waiting for the slip. The humour is in this lead up – when he finally does fall, it feels awkward, uncomfortable, a little pathetic. Not really funny after all.

Michael Coglan’s careful direction is subtle and precise and enables McGovern to fly in this role. It’s a short but beautiful watch.

Krapp's Last Tape runs at the Church Hill Theatre until 27 August at 8pm.

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