Word: krapp
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Cherson and company have done a good job of mechanical wizardry, enough to eliminate any reminder that this is an amateur production. Though the videotape and monitor comprise the central metaphor for the action, the machinery focuses observations on Krapp rather than drawing attention to itself. Through it, the themes of the piece gradually and firmly emerge...
...Krapp, stumbling through meaningless and totally self-referential rituals with his tapes, exemplifies life at an absolute standstill, paralyzed further by the authoritative presence of technology. His endless recycling of a few sparse impressions via his tapes serves only to lock him into the same room, situation, round of thought at the only new material comes in bizarre introspective snatches, such as his sensual enjoyment of the word "spool" (happened on by accident in the tape-playing instructions), or his momentary impulse to look up in a dictionary a word he once knew...
...PERPETUAL and steadily more disturbing self-absorption, the older Krapp apes the taped actions and words of his younger self, fantasizing each time Krapp the younger reminisces about a woman, and occasionally rousing himself to sing a song or swig from a wine bottle at the younger one's cue. In a device of mixed effectiveness, Cherson has chosen to splice actual slides of women into the fantasy sequence, which lends immediacy but punctures the script's hypnotic solipsism...
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...