Stephen Rea in Krapp's Last Tape at the Barbican.It’s been a quarter of a century since I last saw Beckett’s seminal work. On that occasion the production starred the late John Hurt who briefly performed the one hour play at the Ambassador’s Theatre in the West End, and then later on Broadway. Essentially a reflective monologue, after a 10min hiatus on press night, we finally got underway with the black-out gradually revealing our mannequin-like protagonist centre stage, seated at a desk. Above him a dim light grows steadily brighter, eventually illuminating Rea’s Krapp in all his twitchy, dishevelled glory. Lank, wavy hair droops spaniel-like to his shoulders as he combines late-aged bohemian with the look of an unemployed actor. This man could be a sophisticate or a bum and it isn’t entirely clear which.
At roughly 55mins, the play has often been staged as a precursor to other Beckett works, but here it is directed by Vicky Featherstone as a stand alone piece and will draw direct comparison with Gary Oldman’s widely publicised version which opened at York Theatre Royal last month.
The jokes in Beckett’s stage direction notes are followed. Rea musters the slow energy required to gradually slide open the long desk drawer and retrieve a banana, then another. He gorges on them both, avoiding the temptation to discard the second skin as carelessly as the first having predictably skidded, thereby fulfilling the physical mime elements inherent in the largely unscripted piece.
At 78, Rea is nearly a decade older than the man he plays, and yet his jaunty shuffling on and off stage to retrieve tapes and dictionary, feels contrived and overly mannered. Actorish, even. This key physicality in the performance, imbues his Krapp with more performance than it is perhaps wise to imbue, and the overt characterisation acts to detract and subvert the more sombre reflections. Notable in the piece, are references to a doomed love affair, where he listens to his 39 year old self recounting a day spent with a young woman sprawled on the wooden beams of their punt, basking in sunshine as the wind lightly billows, adding a friskiness to the waves. When he tells her it’s no use going on and she agrees without opening her eyes, there is a palpable feeling of loss and regret for this foolish moment in his past. Rea hugs the tape recorder and in that moment we discern the reason he has submitted himself to this hidden existence, shrouded in darkness and seemingly alone. In the right hands it can be a hugely intimate, powerful and upsetting insight, but felt lost on this large stage surrounded by coughing, phone-checking, fidgeting, swiggers of ice cube clinking drinks.
In point of fact, Rea recorded the tapes used in this production more than a decade ago. That fact alone, adds a poignancy to the mocking rebuke he tosses at his younger self — “That voice!” But lightly observed moments aside, this was an underwhelming foray. I wonder whether Mr Oldman’s effort is worthy of the train fare to York.
Plays until Saturday 3rd May.
