You’ve got to be careful with 60-year-old pieces of the theatrical canon – especially ones as slight as this. Old man sits at desk, finds a journal recording of his 39-year-old self, listens, records, listens again, end. Are we just academically, stuffily, living off old glories?
Well, no, and this 50-minute version performed by David Westhead and directed by Stockard Channing (yes, Rizzo) is a reminder of Beckett’s unnatural ability to create theatrical moments that are as odd and alienating as they are human and relatable.
In a Q&A after this afternoon’s performance, Channing described a text with minimal wiggle room except for time, and the directorial role as one of a conductor. That feels right, and the play flies or falls on whether the actor can hold moments of loaded nothingness, or navigate the mostly wordless dialogue between his past and present self. Westhead clearly can, and as he lays his head on the tape recorder towards the end (having returned to what now feels like the only moment of hope in his miserable life, recalling staring into the sun-soaked eyes of lost love) we feel the weight of that head, and those regrets, like a black hole.
On a technical note, the difference between Westhead’s light and breezy, full-of-hope-and-fire recorded voice contrasts painfully with the growls from the man in front of us. His joy of eating a banana is markedly different to his bitterness at drinking. He listens with a hunger that’s very different to the bile through which he speaks. A beautiful portrayal of a man dissected across time, media and life’s potential.
Krapp’s Last Tape, Assembly Roxy, until 31 Aug (not 17), 1.25pm