Word: krapp
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...motorcycle; in London. Schneider was noted for his exacting fidelity to even the most complex script, as he worked to transmit the inner truth of a play rather than impose on it any other vision. He crusaded particularly for Beckett, and his productions of Waiting for Godot, Endgame and Krapp's Last Tape, among others, profoundly influenced the course of modern theater. Also closely associated with Albee, Schneider won a 1962 Tony Award for directing Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Throughout his career, he resisted any single approach to theater, alternating between commercial and workshop projects, Broadway...
...KRAPP'S LAST VIDEO...
Imagine some intrepid young director mounting a revved-up revival of Samuel Beckett's classic, with the scrofulous Krapp wheezing his memoirs onto videotape. It is a daunting prospect, but not perhaps (discounting the good taste of the author's literary agents) an entirely unlikely one. Video has already reached the stage, in Beatlemania for example, but it is practically inundating Hollywood...
When the older Krapp records his analysis of his reactions to watching his younger self, who is in turn watching and discussing the tapes he made on his 28th birthday, he makes several false starts, "editing himself" on the tape, adding an ongoing self-commentary. Instead of illuminating Krapp's personality, the layers of introspection intentionally wrap the narrator in more and more mystery...
Apparently repentant at charging full price for a half-length evening, Cherson has tacked on after the performance one of Beckett's self-directed made-for-T.V. shorts, untitled Ghost Trio, it makes Krapp's Last Tape look like Oklahoma! by comparison. While hardcore absurdist buffs may find this collection of long, gray pauses and slow, expressionless voices interesting Ghost Trio acts primarily as a soporific and is assuredly not worth staying for. Better to walk out during the brief intermission between the shows, however gingerly, with the oppressive miasma of Krapp still fresh in your mind...