Krapp's empty room worth a full house

First appeared Ipswich Evening Star, March 15, 2005

Krapp's Last Tape, by Samuel Beckett
Mercury Theatre Studio, Colchester until March 26

AN old man alone in a room with just a desk, a chair and an overhead light. And, inevitably, his memories.

Memories which in this case come played back and edited on an old reel-to-teel tape-recorder.

For the first 15 minutes of what is only a 55-minute play, Krapp says nothing. He shuffles, he wheezes, he opens and shuts his desk drawer, scratches his nails along the desktop, eats half a banana, but says nothing.

Yet this is the funniest part of the play, intriguingly and brilliantly performed by Peter Dineen.

As usual with Beckett, the whole thing is an uneasy ride along the twin tracks of bleak comedy and amusing tragedy. Well, maybe not tragedy - it's more mundane than that.

Beckett's subject is nothing more, and nothing less, than the stark ridiculousness of being human.

Krapp, old, arguing with the taped voice of his younger self, is funny, sad, ridiculous and oddly dignified - not by turns, but all at once.

Eating - and dropping - his bananas, Dineen's body language aptly reminds us how close we humans are to the other apes.

Yet despite this slow, comic beginning, this is ultimately Beckett at his least bizarre, his most straightforward.

David Hunt, who directed last year's excellent Mercury production of Beckett's surreal masterpiece Happy Days, has brought us a simpler gem this time. But it's no less polished for that.

It's only a pity that last night's audience was so sparse. Dineen, Hunt and Beckett all deserve a full house for this.