Krapp's Last Tape

Krapp's Last Tape, at four pages and one act, is so unlike the other plays we have read thus far. Devoid of the more complex production elements or literary/story devices that define other works, Beckett's "play in one act" is difficult to understand as a significant piece of theatre. I found that I best understood the concept of the play after reading the introduction to the work and Martin Esslin's The Theatre of the Absurd, which provided a systemic analysis of Beckett's technique.

What first resonated with me when reading the play was the extensive stage directions listed at the beginning. One page out of four pages is alot for stage directions! As I continued, I realized the play is virtually split between stage directions carried out by the character and his own words/ the words on the tape. But when did a play become all about the language or story? Because we read plays in this class it easy to forget that, but in actuality plays are meant to be seen. The actions carried out by the character on stage speak volumes to who he is and his history with out requiring language. I couldn't help but laugh that Krapp is directed to be "meditatively eating a banana". How does one meditatively eat a banana? Yet for a character who is so entranced in his own thoughts and memories, this action does not seem all that out of the ordinary. It just seems like something "absurd" that he might do. Absurd in that it is devoid of purpose, the definition used in understanding the Theatre of the Absurd.

Defining the Theatre of the Absurd as part of the "anti literary movement" of our time makes sense to me. It is defined as " a radical devaluation of language, toward a poetry that is to emerge from the concrete and objectified images of the stage itself... what happens on the stage transcends the words spoken by the characters" Krapp's Last Tape is a great example of this. Because many of the words on the tape and spoken do not make sense to the reader, it is Krapp's actions and expressions which create meaning and give the play a sense of action.