“Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago…”  

So begins the last recording of Krapp, a white faced, purple nosed old man with an amazing shock of grey hair. Following the success of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker during the 2014 Arts Festival Dunedin, Fortune is delighted to present this Samuel Beckett classic as part of the 2016 Festival.

Samuel Beckett wrote Krapp’s Last Tape in 1958 to explore the possible significance of a new piece of technology: the reel-to-reel tape recorder. This comic-tragic play is about a man at the end of his life who rekindles his remembered youth by listening to tapes of his younger self. As he listens and reflects on his life as a failed writer, lover and liver, things begin to shift.

Beckett is among the most influential writers of the 20^th Century, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 for this writing.

Director Jonathon Hendry’s vision is to transform the Murray Hutchinson Studio to enable the audience to literally enter into Krapp’s world. Set Designer Peter King says “It will feel like we are in Krapp’s mind and space – there will be no visible “theatre” equipment and his world will spill out into the corridor. The set will feature a disused lift shaft that represents the lack of movement in Krapp’s life.” Hendry says, “Audiences will be submerged into Krapp’s den during a late evening in a mysterious future. A world filled with life’s detritus, reels of tape, shifting memories and a seemingly endless supply of bananas.”

Known as Beckett’s favourite play, the central character is played by esteemed Dunedin actor Simon O’Connor (Outside Mullingar, The War Play, The Keys are in the Margarine, Over the River and Through the Woods). Themes of memory and loss, presence and absence, history and the future are all explored in this much-loved classic, which perhaps leaves the audience asking themselves what would be on the tape of our 30-years-younger self?

The first week of Krapp’s Last Tape will be part of Arts Festival Dunedin. To complete the circle with the 2014 festival, Harold Pinter, who wrote The Caretaker, starred as Krapp in the Royal Court Theatre’s season of Krapp’s Last Tape in London in 2006.

Find out more at fortunetheatre.co.nz  

Murray Hutchinson Studio, Fortune Theatre, 231 Stuart Street, Dunedin
30 September – 22 October, 2016
7.30pm
(1-9 October as part of the Arts Festival Dunedin 2016)
Members’ Briefing: Sunday, 2 October. Meet at the Fortune bar at 3.00pm and join Director Jonathon Hendry for a lively informal chat about Krapp’s Last Tape.
Forum: Tuesday, 4 October. Join the cast and crew for an open question and answer session following the 6.00pm show. 
Tickets: Adults $45
Early Bird (booking 1 month in advance) $37.50
Opening Week Ticket (Sunday-Thursday) $37.50
Senior Citizens/Community Services Card $35
Fortune Theatre Members $32
Tertiary Students $22 (2-for-1 tickets on Wednesdays with ID)
High School Students $17.50  
Group Discount (6+) $35
Bookings: 231 Stuart Street, Dunedin | 03 4778323 | fortunetheatre.co.nz | @fortunetheatre 

Running Time: Approximately 55 Minutes (no interval)  

CREW
Director – Jonathon Hendry
Set Design – Peter King
Lighting Design – Gary Kierle
Costume Design – Maryanne Wright-Smyth
Sound Design – Matthew Morgan
Stage Manager – Erica Browne
Properties Master – George Wallace
Operator – Anna Vandenbosch 

Theatre , Solo ,

55 mins