This Thesis Has Been Approved by the Honors
This thesis has been approved by
The Honors Tutorial College and the School of Theater
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Dr. Matthew Cornish
Director of Studies, Theater
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Shelley Delaney
Former Professor, Theater
Thesis Advisor
Krapp’s Last Tape Under Quarantine: A Contemporary Adaptation
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A Thesis
Presented to
The Honors Tutorial College
Ohio University
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In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater
——————————————————— by
Seth Eggenschwiller
May 2021
Table of Contents:
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Introduction 1
Reexamining Beckett 2
Seeing Beckett 4
Contemporizing Beckett 7
Reagan’s Endgame 8
Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo 11
Waiting for Godot in New Orleans 14
Krapp’s Last Tape Under Quarantine 18
Rehearsal Journal 21
Conclusion 26
Production Photos 29
Works Cited 32
Eggenschwiller 1
Krapp’s Last Tape Under Quarantine: A Contemporary Adaptation
Introduction
Samuel Beckett, in his lifetime (1906-1989), avoided political theater to the best of his ability. He strived to make his plays timeless and universal rather than actionable and contemporary. He also avidly resisted productions that adapted his plays. Even now, many years after his death, Beckett’s estate maintains a tight grip on how theaters stage his work, enforcing compliance with each stage direction. Despite Beckett and his estate’s stubborn guidelines, theatermakers often perceive his plays as undeniably contemporary. The plays contain strong images of catastrophe, war, desolation, loneliness, and numerous other bleak themes. These images, to some, feel unmistakably modern in certain despairing contexts. In the midst of the Siege of Sarajevo in the early
1990’s, Susan Sontag produced Beckett’s most popular play, W aiting for Godot. After
Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans in 2005, Paul Chan also mounted a production of W aiting for Godot, set in the city’s streets. Beckett himself chided Joanne Akalaitis’s production of Endgame , performed under Reagan’s brutal neglect of homeless
Americans. Opposing analyses of Beckett’s work, traditionalist and contemporary, have collided in multiple legal battles between bold theater companies and Beckett’s estate.
Hartley Alexander recalls these legal battles in his essay, “Beckett’s Legal Scuffles and the Interpretation of the Plays.” Alexander writes, “Beckett's legal scuffles have taken several forms: court action, the withdrawal of already-granted performance rights, a refusal to renew them , compromises forced by the threat of litigation” (Alexander). But despite Beckett’s objections, particularizing the settings of his plays to contemporary Eggenschwiller 2 environments enhances the dramatic themes within them and deepens their impact on the community they are performed in, as seen by three challenging productions that have inspired this thesis project: a timely adaptation of Krapp’ s Last Tape.
In this paper I argue for the importance of reexamining revered figures in the theatrical canon by critically investigating Beckett’s personal life alongside his work, and
I analyze three modernized productions of Beckett’s plays. I then explain how these productions inspired my thesis production, and detail my unique design concept for
Krapp’s Last Tape. Also, I include a detailed journal of my experiences producing the play safely and in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reexamining Beckett
Beckett is a widely celebrated writer, known not only for his plays, but also his novels, poems, and short stories. He could be considered one of the greatest writers of the
20th century. Naturally, numerous critics and scholars have written at length about his unique style of work.1 Beckett’s dramas, particularly, are unparalleled by other playwrights. The barren and desolate settings, bizarre and mysterious characters, and absence of overarching plot or narrative create an unprecedented type of theater. Martin
Esslin called it the Theater of the Absurd, and attributed Beckett as one of its creators. In his book, The Theater of the Absurd, Esslin explains how absurdism surfaced in the theater after World War II: “the certitudes and unshakable basic assumptions of former ages have been swept away, they have been tested and found wanting, they have been discredited as cheap and somewhat childish illusions. The decline of religious faith was
1 R uby Cohn and S. E. Gontarski are two notable scholars of Beckett’s work. Additionally, the J ournal of Beckett Studies, edited for many years by Gontarski, continues to publish writing on Beckett biannually since 1979. Eggenschwiller 3 masked until the end of the Second World War by the substitute religions of faith in progress, nationalism, and various totalitarian fallacies. All this was shattered by the war”
(Esslin xviii-xix). Uniting beliefs of morality, truth, and purpose were put into question after the horrors of World War II, which led to a theater without any purpose at all.
Beckett was arguably the primary playwright behind this movement.
Many absurd plays, like those of Harold Pinter, are static; they lack action and any sense of plot. This tactic appears in Beckett plays often, leaving the meaning of his drama ambiguous, ultimately allowing the reader or viewer to interpret the purpose of the plays. In The Cambridge Companion to Beckett, Michael Worton writes, “This abdication of authorial power and this appeal to the creative intervention of readers mark Beckett out as one of the founding fathers of…our Post-Modern condition” (Worton 85). Worton attributes Beckett with the beginning of an artistic movement, much like Esslin in The
Theater of the Absurd. Some scholars go so far as revering Beckett as an almost inhuman entity. In The Cambridge Companion to Beckett, P. J. Murphy writes, “Beckett studies, despite a phenomenal growth over the last three decades or so, has only just begun to articulate clearly and fully the essential ‘differences’ … with which it is engaged”
(Murphy 222). By differences, he means the essential philosophies that surface in the plays. Murphy implies here that Beckett’s canon contains such complexity that decades of critical thought have barely scratched the surface. What each of these scholarly examinations of Beckett lack, though, is the consideration of Beckett’s personal character and identity.
While I respect the significance of Beckett’s writing, regarding him as a philosophical master risks denying the defining mundane and political qualities about his Eggenschwiller 4 life, and therefore misinterpreting his plays. James Gourley closely tracks critical reception of Beckett plays throughout Beckett’s playwriting career in Samuel Beckett in
Context . Gourley explains that the critical reception of Beckett’s work grew rapidly from general indifference during the early stages of Beckett’s career, to worldwide adoration in his mid-career. Gourley goes on to say, “Beckett’s critical reception and literary success culminated in an emerging view of his work, beginning in the late 1950s, which seeks to understand the Beckettian oeuvre as somehow reflective of all ” (Gourley 403). Critics regard Beckett so highly that, Gourley explains, Beckett’s plays transcend drama and become something almost biblical. Here is the problem: Beckett is not “reflective of all .”
His work reflects his perspective as a white, cisgender, and heterosexual man. Beckett’s writing cannot be universal. Whiteness is not a lack of race, and maleness is not a lack of gender, and, whatsmore, these aspects of Beckett’s identity are evident in his plays. More contemporary writers, especially those highlighted in Palgrave Macmillan’s scholarly series “New Interpretations of Beckett in the Twenty-First Century,” have found more grounded ways to criticize Beckett’s work, seeing it as the product of the white, heterosexual, and cisgender man Beckett was, rather than the scriptures of a philosophical demigod.
Seeing Beckett
Many writers have been critical of Beckett’s drama, particularly in his early career, but third-wave feminism especially began to look at his work with a more condemning eye. Beckett’s idolic status in the literary canon could not shield him from the undeniable presence of his own politics in his work. We live in an age now where we Eggenschwiller 5 know political affiliations to be unavoidable. Masculinity is political. Ambivalence is political. Even though political ambivalence permeates Beckett’s drama, he himself was not ambivalent. Emilie Morin’s book Beckett’ s Political Imagination tracks Beckett’s concrete political beliefs. Morin starts her book by saying that “Beckett’s texts, with their numerous portrayals of violence, torture, dispossession, internment and subjugation, harbour a real political immediacy, while his notebooks, manuscripts and correspondence reveal a fine and astute observer of political symbols, attuned to the long history of political myths in the Irish Free State, Nazi Germany and France in the aftermath of the
Second World War and during the Algerian War of Independence” (Morin 1). Beckett was anti-war, anti-fascist, and an advocate for human rights; he considered “helping writers working in less favourable circumstances…a duty” (Morin 247). In examining
Beckett’s personal life, clear political affiliations emerge, which influence his drama.
Unlike some other revered philosophical minds, like those from the Renaissance or
Ancient Greece, the specifics of Beckett’s life are studyable. His character and his actions are recorded. Some of his peers are still alive. We understand the type of man that he was on a personal level.
We understand that he was a misogynist. Jennifer M. Jeffers examines Beckett’s character, specifically his gender and misogyny, in her book Beckett’s Masculinity. Jeffers analyzes Beckett’s early manuscripts of Krapp’ s Last Tape, originally titled “The Magee
Monologue,” to track how Beckett weaved traditional Irish masculinity into Krapp’s character as a nostalgic politicized assertion of classical gender roles. “The move from the Magee Monologue to the first typescript shows that Beckett is softening Krapp’s masculine failure; now Krapp has plans for a ‘fuller sexual life’ that connotes the idea Eggenschwiller 6 that young Krapp is not a completely successful man because he is not a totally successful and/or frequent heterosexual lover” (Jeffers 123). Essentially, Beckett actively hypermasculinized Krapp’s ambitions in order to underline how men should act or strive to be. This masculine, heterosexual assertion can be seen in filmed productions of the play. Consider this section of the opening stage direction from the final version of the play, “He turns, advances to edge of stage, halts, strokes banana, peels it, drops skin at his feet, puts end of banana in his mouth and remains motionless, staring vacuously before him. Finally he bites off the end…” (Beckett 215). This phallic, undeniably semi-sexual moment can be interpreted in a few varying ways, but the text implies that the banana remains in his mouth for some time. Patrick Magee, the first performer of Krapp’ s Last
Tape, under the direction of Donald McWhinnie, starred in a filmed version produced by the BBC in 1972. In this filmed version, Magee keeps the banana in his mouth for only a brief moment before biting it, indulging in no sensuality at all. To make the moment sexual would contradict the image of an ideal figure of Irish masculinity, given the homoerotic implications of enjoying a phallic shape in one’s mouth. But even so, why would Magee carry out an action that directly contradicts the intention of a stage direction, especially in a Beckett play, where accuracy and precision are crucial? Beckett himself advised Magee on the original performance, and they were good friends and collaborators. Did Beckett not see the obvious homoeroticism in his own play, and subsequently not feel the need to uphold that moment? Or was Magee himself unwilling to emasculate himself for a filmed version of the play that Beckett was not working on?
Either way, the play itself maintains a political statement on how men should experience sexuality. Eggenschwiller 7
Beckett’s misogyny was not contained to the intentions behind his male characters; many critics have pointed out the sexist construction of the women he writes about, particularly in his novels. In Sex and Aesthetics in Samuel Beckett’s Work, Paul
Stewart goes beyond accusing Beckett of a passive misogyny that is common among white male writers from the 20th century; Stewart asserts that “a pervasive hatr ed of women [...] permeates his work” (Stewart 73). Most of the female characters in the novels are representative of sexual whims of Beckett’s that ultimately “distract the mind of the male in his search for ‘self’” (72). This harmful female archetype haunts Krapp’ s
Last Tape as well. Krapp references several women in his tape, and each one is either a sexual conquest, an opportunity for writerly inspiration, or a hindrance to his career. To me, the most grim of these representations is Fanny, who Krapp casually refers to as a
“bony old ghost of a whore” (Beckett 222). These contemporary critical interpretations of
Beckett by Stewart and Jeffers provide a more balanced look at a writer who mostly receives veneration and praise. I have found that considering Beckett’s personal identity and misogynistic perspective actually provides rich dramaturgical information while researching his plays.
Contemporizing Beckett
A handful of notable productions have successfully particularized Beckett’s plays to contemporaneous settings. Three productions in particular—by Joanne Akalatis, Susan
Sontag, and Paul Chan—serve as primary influences for my staging of Krapp’ s Last
Tape. Beckett’s work is particularly effective in despairing environments. For example, successful productions have been staged in prisons, countries at war, cities devastated by Eggenschwiller 8 calamity, and inhumane political environments. Scenes of r eal devastation, calamity, and crisis go well with Beckett’s work, particularly W aiting for Godot. One of these notable productions of Godot was performed in San Quentin State Prison in 1957, directed by Jan
Jönson. The themes of the play—the pointlessness of life, Sisyphean struggle, and the logistics of waiting for nothing—are all at play in a prison, so, despite the odds, the same play that initially puzzled respected theater critics received rave reviews from thousands of prisoners. Russell Dembin writes in American Theatre Magazine that W aiting for
Godot “was then the height of European avant-garde drama, and had so far left perplexed audiences and critics in its wake [...] What had bewildered the sophisticated audiences of
Paris, London, and New York was immediately grasped by an audience of convicts”
(Dembin). The San Quentin Godot had a surprising impact, but the staging of the play stayed true to Beckett’s intentions. Other productions have not followed the rules so clearly, altering the design or stage directions in order to specify the setting into a contemporary place of despair.
Reagan’s Endgame
Perhaps the first production to contemporize Beckett was Joanne Akalaitis’s 1984 production of Endgame . Her production gained infamy for creating a legal altercation with Beckett himself. Akalaitis directed an innovative Endgame at the American
Repertory Theater, a staging that unmistakably resembled a post-apocalyptic New York subway car filled with homeless people. The production was inspired by Ronald
Reagan’s ruthless legislation that slashed funds supporting the homeless. Reagan believed that homeless people were homeless by choice, and his legislation reflected that belief, Eggenschwiller 9 instilling widespread indifference toward homeless people and immortalizing homelessness in the United States. In their essay, “Unhousing the Urban Poor,” Beth A.
Rubin, James D. Wright, and Joel A. Devine write that “housing policy in the Reagan years was two-pronged: tax subsidies to underwrite the housing costs of upper income groups and a largely unrestricted private market for lower income groups [...] Sadly, the private market has few if any incentives to provide low income housing; there is much more money in housing the rich than in housing the poor” (Rubin, Wright, and Devine
123). This legislation marks the historic abandonment of government responsibility for homeless Americans and for proper housing for people of all incomes.
Akalaitis’s Endgame broke a few rules to reflect the desolate environment that
Reagan ensured for homeless people. In a New York T imes review, Mel Gussow describes Douglas Stein’s set as “ an abandoned subway station, layered with trash as well as a derelict train, figuratively a subway car named despair. One could consider the set a visualization of what Clov refers to in the play as a ‘muckheap’” (Gussow). The specificity of this set design contradicts Beckett’s stage directions and his aesthetic. The play calls for a “bare interior” and “two small windows” (Beckett 92), and the absence of these elements in the production became grounds for a lawsuit between Beckett’s estate and the American Repertory Theater. Eggenschwiller 10
Hamm and Clov on Douglas Stein’s infamous set. 1984.
Photo by Richard Feldman.
In addition to the exclusion of two small windows from the set, Beckett took umbrage with Phillip Glass’ original overture that played before the play, as well as the music that was interspersed throughout the piece to underline the climactic moments. There were a few other minor changes to the piece, but Gussow reports that “alterations were minimal… While some other productions of Endgame have been freely elaborative,
Americanizing Beckett or interrupting speeches for strobe-lighting effects, [Akalaitis’ production] is a valid representation of the spirit of the original work” (Gussow). Overall, the production maintained the integrity of the play, so this legal altercation might have been dismissed if Beckett himself saw the piece before denouncing it. Before any legal battle took place, though, the situation was settled out of court: the production could Eggenschwiller 11 continue if Beckett could personally write a note of disapproval to be printed on the first page of each program and if all advertisements for the production lacked his name.
Ultimately, Beckett’s childish and petty settlement represents a tyrannical structure for interpreting art that nearly snuffed a successful and worthy production.
Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo
Another famous deviant production occurred during the Bosnian War in Sarajevo in 1993 under the direction of Susan Sontag. From approximately 1992 to 1996,
Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was under siege by the Army of
Republika Srpska, or the Bosnian Serb Army. When Bosnia and Herzegovina formally seceded from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992, approximately 80,000 Bosnian
Serb troops were discharged from the Yugoslav People’s Army, but kept their firearms and other weaponry. Seeking to establish a Serb dominated Bosnia, the Bosnian Serb
Army murdered more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims and expelled thousands more from the city. These actions have since been classified as war crimes and acts of genocide. In the middle of this war-torn state, in 1993, Susan Sontag, a celebrated American writer, directed W aiting for Godot.
Sontag had visited Sarajevo a few months before she returned to mount the production and fell in love with the citizens under siege. She observed an inadequacy in international intervention in the humanitarian crisis taking place in Sarajevo, and took it upon herself to preserve the arts and culture of the city. Sontag recounted her experience putting the play together in her essay “W aiting for Godot in Sarajevo,” in which she writes, “Beckett’s play, written over forty years ago, seems written for, and about, Eggenschwiller 12
Sarajevo” (Sontag 68). Sontag recounts receiving questions from journalists who asked her the purpose of performing a depressing play during a depressing time. Her eloquent response: “In Sarajevo, as anywhere else, there are more than a few people who feel strengthened and consoled by having their sense of reality affirmed and transfigured by art” (Sontag 69). This concept serves as a core principle for particularizing Beckett.
Artistic transformation of tangible, daily struggle is a cathartic, empowering experience.
The people of Sarajevo at this time lived in humiliating conditions in order to survive.
There was no running water or electricity, and food was scarce. Additionally, bombs were dropped regularly, and civilians’ lives were constantly in danger, even in their homes.
The theater itself where Godot was performed was inaccessible through the front entrance, which was destroyed, along with the box office and lobby area, by explosives.
Sontag’s version of the play was unique for a few other reasons as well. The most obvious variation from most productions was the triple casting of Vladimir and Estragon.
Sontag had an excess of talented and available actors, and she wanted to highlight the different facets of the iconic characters through different gender portrayals. There were three couples: two men, two women, and a man and a woman. This casting decision added considerable length to the play, so Sontag decided only to perform the first act. She wanted to include as many actors as she could in this substantial cultural event, and she saw an opportunity to include women in the piece, both as the leading characters and as
Pozzo. Even now, long after Beckett’s death, Beckett’s estate continues to revoke rights from productions who attempt to cast women. Just last year, Andrea Simakis reports from
Oberlin, “Posters had been printed. Tlaloc Rivas, a director and playwright based in
Pittsburgh, had selected a cast. Rehearsals were scheduled to begin after the holidays. But Eggenschwiller 13 faced with the threat of litigation from the Beckett estate, the liberal bastion honored the wishes of a long-dead misogynist and axed the show” (Simakis). Beckett’s crass mandates about artistic expression may have stifled many productions like the one in
Oberlin, but the anarchy of Sarajevo shielded Sontag from this scrutiny. In addition to including women in her cast, all of Sontag’s rehearsals and performances were dimly candlelit, due to the absence of electricity. It would have been impossible for this production to recreate an image of evening with only candlelight, so audience members sat exclusively in the first few rows.
A candlelit rehearsal for W aiting for Godot in Sarajevo, 1993. Sontag is second from the right.
Photo by Paul Lowe.
All of these variations from traditional interpretations of the play would have troubled Beckett, but the production received international attention and renown. Sontag was regarded as a celebrity in Sarajevo at the time for her efforts, and deemed an Eggenschwiller 14 honorary citizen by the mayor on opening night. In fact, in 2005, after Sontag’s death, the square outside the Bosnian National Theater was named after her. John F. Burns, a New
York T imes reporter who saw the performance, writes, “T o the people of Sarajevo, Ms.
Sontag has become a symbol, interviewed frequently by the local newspapers and television, invited to speak at gatherings everywhere, asked for autographs on the street”
(Burns). The reach of the play transcended the stage into the culture of the arts in
Sarajevo and into the spirits of the people who saw it. Through the specificity of setting in Godot , the possibility for cultural impact widens. Sontag illustrates the silence that fell over the audience in the final moments of the play with the final part of her essay: “No one in the audience made a sound. The only sounds were those coming from outside the theatre: a UN APC thundering down the street and the crack of sniper fire” (Sontag 106).
The people of Sarajevo were waiting for international intervention in their humanitarian crisis, waiting for President Clinton to stand up against fascism and genocide, but until then: nothing to be done.
Waiting for Godot in New Orleans
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina swept through the southern United States, devastating countless people and their homes like no other natural disaster in recent history. Several feet of floodwater lingered in certain parts of New Orleans for weeks after the storm, leaving countless people stranded in their homes, waiting for help. The U.S. government infamously took far too long to aid these people, resulting in a truly catastrophic landmark in American history and the creation of another tangible Sisyphean struggle.
These Americans needed help for days and days and received none; they had nothing to Eggenschwiller 15 do but wait. Paul Chan, a renowned visual artist, saw the devastation in New Orleans and felt inspired to mount a production of W aiting for Godot in the streets ravaged by Katrina in 2007, directed by Christopher McElroen with the Classical Theater of Harlem. Similar to Sontag’s Sarajevo production, the devastated environment made a powerful opportunity for Beckett’s work. The production was carefully documented in W aiting for
Godot in New Orleans: a Field Guide , a comprehensive recollection of the rehearsal process edited by Chan himself. In his artist statement, Chan explains how he perceived the environment in New Orleans shortly after the disaster. “The streets were still, as if time had been swept away along with the houses. [...] I realized it [looked like] the stage setting for a play I have seen many times. It was unmistakable. The empty road. The bare tree leaning precariously to one side… The silence.” (Chan 26). It was a perfect picture of W aiting for Godot.
Chan felt an immediate urge to produce the play, even though he was not a theater artist, but he faced a dilemma: why stage a play in a community in need? New Orleans needed immediate financial relief, government-funded rebuilding programs, things that a play could not provide. One of Chan’s collaborators, Ronald Lewis, told him, “You gotta leave something behind for the community” (Chan 27). So, Chan compiled a handful of community-focused initiatives to serve the people of New Orleans, including a shadow fund that matched any production costs of the play to donate to the community. Nato
Thompson, another one of Chan’s collaborators on the project, writes, “W aiting for Godot in New Orleans included numerous facets: the acting workshops, classes, potluck dinners, community meetings; the Shadow Fund, and a film; food and music; this book and, of course, the play itself… Without these other pieces, the project as a whole would not Eggenschwiller 16 have worked. In fact, many community constituents in New Orleans would have protested against it” (Thompson 44). So, Chan’s production became a beacon for community strength and perseverance through these initiatives. Performances were staged in many locations throughout the city, all for free, with food for the audience and tables set with information about the production and about helping the community.
A preliminary set drawing for W aiting for Godot in New Orleans ( Chan 37).
Beckett would have considered this production a travesty. While it managed to follow the stage directions, the setting of Chan’s production is particular and concrete, opposite Beckett’s intention. Also, in absurd plays, there is generally no clear purpose and the audience is left without any answers to the existential problems posed by the play.
The purpose of this production was clear, and the audience walked away with a stronger connection to their community. Eggenschwiller 17
Vladimir and Estragon in Act 2. 2007. (Chan 202-203).
Photo by Dean Young.Chan’ s project was initially performed on the streets in New Orleans in 2007, but it was adapted partially from the Classical Theater of Harlem’s version of the play from 2006, also directed by McElroen. This production bent the rules as well. The contained environment of a theater, as opposed to the streets of New Orleans, allowed for an innovative set design by Troy Hourie. The stage was a caved in roof of a home surrounded by waste-deep water, as if it was taking place in the height of Katrina’s devastation. Pozzo rolled in on a floatie. Neil Genzlinger, a theater critic for the New
York T imes , praised the production for its powerful revivification of the otherwise overdone script. He reports “a daffy, damp, surprisingly effective version of the play”
(Genzlinger). Both versions of the show, in New Orleans and New York, were received well by critics, and the production later received a national tour. Eggenschwiller 18
Krapp’s Last Tape Under Quarantine
My idea to put on a production of Krapp’s Last Tape came to me before the pandemic began. I had a budding interest in acting Beckett, so I registered for a tutorial with a director whom I revere, Shelley Delaney, and the two of us prepared for a workshop production. We got about halfway through our rehearsal process before the university, and subsequently the world, shut down in response to COVID-19. About five months later, I revisited the tapes that I made for rehearsal. These are the tapes that Krapp recorded when he was 39-years-old, thirty years prior to the action of the play. While listening to myself play the role, I felt as if a decade had passed since I had recorded those tapes. A deep sense of loneliness and envy washed over me. I felt jealous of the person I was just a few months before, living in complete ignorance and bliss. Listening to those tapes now, as I write this many months later, they sound like they come from another human being entirely. Perhaps this is how Krapp feels as he listens to his
39-year-old self recount his tales of sexual conquest and fiery inspiration. I knew then that Krapp’ s Last Tape was the perfect play for the pandemic.
The design concept for this production began with the forbidden idea of contemporizing the play. I started with only one goal: depicting the specific kind of loneliness that I have felt in the pandemic through Beckett’s play. I knew that the production would not be approved by Beckett’s estate, so I classified it as a private class project in order to avoid any legal disagreements. With all that freedom, I allowed altering the text, stage directions, and intended props in tablework discussions and the rehearsal room. I learned quickly that simply updating all of Krapp’s technology to what would more typically be used in 2020 is too direct of an interpretation, and lacks depth. Eggenschwiller 19
Replacing a reel-to-reel with an iPhone and putting Krapp in a dingy dorm room would alter the action and aesthetics of the play too greatly. I was interested in altering the play, but not completely rewriting it. So, as an experiment, the design team and I started incorporating numerous kinds of technology randomly throughout the piece. Ironically, this hodge podge of technologies and recording devices, which seems like it might evoke
Beckettian timelessness, feels modern. We had loose VCR tape entangled with reel-to-reel tape and an old camera next to a useless WiFi router, with a 2020 MacBook
Air next to a vintage reel-to-reel player. It was a mess, and it worked. Similarly, staying true to the hypermasculine elements of the play while openly embracing the homoerotic and feminine implications within the piece gives the character a fresh, contemporary feel.
The play is full of emasculating moments, like when Krapp “puts end of banana in his mouth and remains motionless, staring vacuously before him” (Beckett 215). But many performances of this play uphold an unwavering masculine energy. Utilizing femininity, and the breaking down of a tightly strung masculine structure, Krapp’s clownish humor flourishes. I showed up to a rehearsal one day wearing dark nail polish, arbitrarily, and
Shelley insisted that we keep it. And while I recognize that a man wearing nail polish is not a revolutionary genderplay concept, it did allow conflicting ideas and imagery to coexist, both in the character himself and his surroundings, and instantly conveyed a contemporary mood.
A major hurdle I encountered while rehearsing Krapp was my own age. Krapp is nearly 50 years older than myself; it would take a great deal of makeup to make myself seem that old. Fortunately, the purpose of this adaptation is to demonstrate that Krapp’s weariness and dread has become more widespread since the pandemic began, and can be Eggenschwiller 20 caused by prolonged quarantining and sickness. But age is a core element of the piece:
Krapp’s clownish behavior is dependent on a strong physical impediment. For this production, that impediment, rather than age, is respiratory difficulty and other symptoms of COVID. This reinterpretation is simple in comparison to the production design, but we found in rehearsal that the most effective impediments for actors are concise and specific.
Overcomplicating an impediment would result in a garbled performance. The severity of some COVID symptoms provides more than enough clownish opportunity for the more physical moments of the play. These symptoms, combined with the mess of technology littering the stage, serves as a proper comic replacement for age. In order to further resolve this age problem, I sought out the most similar experience that I could have to
Krapp, who listens to a recording of himself from 30 years prior. Luckily, in December of
2020, my parents digitized a few hours of camera footage of myself and my siblings when we were very young. In one video, I am only two weeks old. By watching this footage of myself from a newborn to about four years old, I learned the experience of not recognizing my past self and having no memory of my actions. I watched it intently, investigating the person I once was and searching for glints of my current self. This, I imagine, is how Krapp feels. I decided to utilize this old footage of myself for the performance, displaying it for the audience on a small television. This addition to the text completed the contemporization and created a succinct, contemporary, Beckettian world.
Eggenschwiller 21
Rehearsal Journal
I began rehearsals for this project in January of 2021. The team that I put together consisted of:
Shelley Delaney — Director Sarah Saho — Assistant Director Michael Dias — Clown Consultant Raine DeDominici — Stage Manager Mason Sams — Sound Designer Alyssa Embry — Set Designer/Props Designer Jenny Martin — Lighting Designer
I kept a detailed journal of each rehearsal to recount the specific discoveries that
Shelley, myself, and my design team made as we went along. Here is a brief recounting of each week of my process:
- Week of 1/25 - This week we had our first rehearsal. Shelley and I began working through the script, creating a props list and solidifying our design process. I immediately realized that contemporizing the environment in a simple way was far too on the nose. It can’t just be a dorm room. Shelley suggested that we have an amalgamation of many technologies, even perhaps progressing through different technologies chronologically, as they were invented. A whole bunch of different technologies put together, including technology from our era, could work for this project, much like Julie Taymore’s T itus. - Week of 2/1 - This week we officially began tablework, brainstorming ideas for which moments stand out as contemporary. We came into the rehearsal with a few things to focus on in particular: Krapp’s age, and his vocal quality as a 39-year-old. We attempted to pinpoint a couple impediments that could replace age, the most obvious being sickness. We began working with respiratory problems. Additionally, Shelley suggested that Krapp’s voice Eggenschwiller 22
as a 39-year-old could just be my own voice without any impediment that the onstage character will have. These ideas are still evolving. I learned that our short amount of time that I have available for tablework is not sufficient to fully discuss Beckett’s play. Then again, I’m not sure that I could have properly studied and discussed Beckett’s play with a whole year of tablework. - Week of 2/8 - This week we met primarily on Zoom to rehearse Krapp’s voice. We need to produce a rehearsal version of the recorded tape by the end of next week in order to have adequate rehearsal time with it before a final version will be created. We found that a more presentational reading of the tape works best for most of it: imagining that Krapp is speaking for an audience, relishing in every word. When he speaks more privately, it could be too quiet for our audience to hear. Also, while a more private experience of the text would work for a filmed version of this play, presentational style almost always works better for theater. I think that this is more true to Beckett’s style, as well. We will finish voice work for this tape soon next week and then create a rehearsal version to get on my feet with. - Week of 2/15 - We ended up rehearsing voicework for the rest of the week. Shelley suggested that I try on the 39-year-old tape with a couple of drinks in me. Initially, I assumed that she was joking, but I tried it. What the hell, right? This actually became a very rewarding exercise! It immediately reminded me that Krapp has no reason to make his tape sound pretty. He’s a drunk, it’s not going to be clean audio. As an actor sitting with a microphone in my face, I felt like every line needed to be pristine and perfectly delivered, but Krapp wouldn’t be worrying about such things at all. He’s recording this for himself, and himself alone. I recorded our first rehearsal tape with Mason, our sound designer, this week. Also, Alyssa finished her set design. She is thinking of having a 6 foot cube covered in shower curtain Eggenschwiller 23
plastic with the entire play contained within it. I love the meaning that “6 feet” contains now. Additionally, Alyssa’s set design made me realize that we definitely need a lighting designer, though I hadn’t thought to bring one on yet. Luckily, Jenny was quick to jump on the project, and seems very excited! - Week of 2/22 - We finally started getting on our feet this week. We looked for creative physical solutions to Krapp’s impediment, since we don’t want to use age. We found that respiratory difficulty immediately suggests COVID. Simply adding voice to breath intakes accomplishes this. We also worked with head-cold symptoms to substitute Krapp’s fleeting senses. Being fatigued and leading with a heavy, snot-filled head creates a slow, clunky movement signature that serves the pace of the play and adds our own unique twist without changing the intention too much. Also, the previous Director of Studies for the Honors Tutorial College theater program, Dr. Condee, told me several months ago that his personal favorite performance of Krapp’ s Last Tape was full of bodily fluid, just leaking from the actor’s face. I feel like we’re on the right track. - Week of 3/1 - This week we finalized the impediment work to a strong head cold/COVID symptoms. I have found a short practice that gets me right into the headspace for the performance. Additionally, simply putting on the impediment changes my vocal quality enough to distinguish it from the 39-year-old tape. This, combined with the stark change in demeanor between 39-year-old Krapp and onstage Krapp is good enough to distinguish the two for the audience. Also, I had an epiphany! I have been sitting on this footage of myself as a child that my parents found a couple of months ago, knowing that I want to include it in the piece somehow. I think that the perfect way to do this is to include it whenever there is a moment of Krapp brooding. We will try this out in rehearsal soon, but I think it’s going to work for us very well. Eggenschwiller 24
- Week of 3/8 - This week we conducted a few experiments. The most major one involved COVID face masks. When could I be wearing a mask? How does that serve us? Is that too on the nose? We tried run throughs on both ends of the spectrum, i.e. one run without any masks at all, and one where I frequently put on and took off disposable masks. Honestly, I am still not sure which works best. I’m relying on Shelley’s eye here, but I think that we will likely use masks sparingly, perhaps only at the beginning. Our next experiment involved Ice Age. We had an old VCR copy of the movie, and I decided to whip it out instead of a fresh tape. It got such a laugh from everyone in the room, that we have to keep it. I don’t know if it works, I don’t know if it serves the play, but we’re keeping it. The play is dark, and we need levity. I also brought in the clips of myself as a kid that I wanted to use for the show. We incorporated them in, and it was a huge success. We have been having lots of technical difficulties, but one moment emerged during a run through where I began childishly pounding on my laptop as it didn’t load. When the clip finally loaded, we saw a young version of myself get scolded by my father, with him saying, “Seth. Seth! Don’t do that. Don’t play on the computer!” Absolute gold. I have no doubt that will also be in the final product. Also, while rehearsing the 39-year-old tape, Shelley suggested an excellent exercise that led to a breakthrough. She had me record myself telling a story, and then listen to myself telling that story before practicing the text. This immediately gave me a sense of what it feels like to hear myself, allowing me to more easily particularize how Krapp would listen to himself. - Week of 3/15 - This week we further rehearsed and put together the final version of the 39-year-old tape. I tried my best to include additional grunts and superfluous sound to the tape, but since we were recording in a full studio, I don’t think I added much. During our rehearsal for the recording session, though, Shelley and I specified numerous important moments. I have Eggenschwiller 25
learned that part of working on a Beckett play is solving the mysteries, even if you’re not sure that you have the right answer. In my mind, I have a full explanation for nearly everything that Krapp says, but I have no idea if this is what was meant. We’re getting to crunch time! I’m getting excited. - Week of 3/22 - This week we did multiple runs of the show. They’re getting better and better, but I still don’t feel ready! We have just about every design and tech aspect finalized, and it is all coming together well, but I’m starting to question if this production will be effective at all. I’ve put so much thought into the intended impact and what I want the show to seem like, but I am so steeped in making this production simply happen, that I’m not sure if it’s going to happen well. I’m sure that many theatermakers feel this way at some point in their process, but because I have never been a producer or artistic designer or any of the many other hats I wear for this production besides actor, I’m feeling quite scared! - Week of 3/29 - I’ll begin with saying that the show was a success. The week has been hellish, but the production was built, teched, and performed successfully for 80 audience members. It makes me so happy to say that so blatantly. If I were to recount all of the miniscule annoyances and difficulties that we faced during our tech process, it would take an egregious amount of time, so I will just talk about two of the biggest issues that ended up changing the nature of the performance: the cold and the noise. I could not have anticipated that, in April, the weather would suddenly drop to freezing temperatures on the weekend I had planned, irreversibly, to perform my thesis. It was quite cold for every performance, particularly our final dress rehearsal on our day of tech, which was the one performance that I recorded. The cold was excruciating, so we had to change my costume. I also felt bad for all of the audience members who attended, but in talking with many of them after the show, they didn’t seem too upset. As for the Eggenschwiller 26
noise, I didn’t anticipate that the only power source for my performance space, an event tent purchased by the College of Fine Arts at the beginning of the pandemic, would be a generator that produced constant sound a bit louder than a lawn mower. This erased all subtlety in the performance. We had a microphone onstage to amplify my lines, and I relied on it for basically every word I said. This nulled most all of the nuance that Shelley and I crafted into the performance. So, after opening night, Shelley suggested that I “go all out.” The final performances of this piece were ridiculous, cantankerous, and lots of fun. The subtlety of Krapp’s final monologue all went away, and turned into, as Shelley put it, “a post-apocalyptic radio show reaching out over the airways.” All in all, I am happy. This play occurred all at once, in a blurred explosion, all supported by my wonderful and gracious team. I can’t think of a more appropriate way for theater to occur.
Conclusion
Near the end of the rehearsal process, I realized that my adaptation was missing a key component. Each of the revered productions that I researched for this project did something tangible for the community. Joanne Akalaitis raised awareness for a pressing issue in her community. Paul Chan raised funds, fed the audience, and had information on how to further aid the community available at every performance. Susan Sontag single handedly reinvigorated the entire artistic community of Sarajevo in an international crisis.
I decided that I wanted to mirror these productions and add something to supplement the spirit of my adaptation. Rather than place cards for audience seating, I used bananas.
Shelley purchased dozens of bunches of them, and my stage manager, Raine, distributed a single banana to each seat during pre-show, writing the audience member’s first name next to a little smiley face. This gesture is miniscule in comparison to the other Eggenschwiller 27 productions’ philanthropic work, but I thought that a small, absurd moment could raise the spirits of my peers and collaborators.
Despite my contentment with the rehearsal process, I have realized that this adaptation is quite volatile. Proper adaptations capture the spirit of the initial text and then expand upon it in creative ways. Unfortunately for me, a Beckett play is like a black hole of study and research. I have learned over the past year that no matter how much time I spend studying, there will always be parts of the play that I have yet to figure out.
Before I felt capable of tackling the original text, the rehearsal process began, and it was time to adapt! So, I feel that more than anything, this production is an experiment. Rather than constantly referencing the text and deriving meaning from Beckett’s words, Shelley and I started with our own meaning, and our own experience of the pandemic, sought out what parts of the play resonated the strongest with our interpretation, and selectively pieced together our own version. We made a playground that let me do whatever felt right, when a Beckett play is a classroom where each piece of behavior is strictly prescribed. We went as far as including the popular children’s film Ice Age in an integral moment of the opening stage direction. Many directorial decisions were made without adequate discussion surrounding them, because there simply was not enough time, so we followed our impulses and trusted them. And while I have no personal problem blaspheming Beckett, I imagine that any playwright could feel violated by this approach.
So, what was the point? Did I achieve my goal? Is it even possible to have properly calculated this adaptation, given my time frame and circumstances? Beckett remains a mystery to me. Krapp remains a mystery. Krapp’s envelope, watch, and bananas remain a mystery. This production came and went, and there are still so many Eggenschwiller 28 unanswered questions! Initially, realizing this upset me. Shouldn’t my thesis production have been a revelation? Shouldn’t I have conquered Beckett? But ultimately, understanding Beckett and challenging myself with a difficult play isn’t what this adaptation is about. In the face of the pandemic, an ongoing international emergency, and shared community trauma, Beckett doesn’t matter nearly as much as the people who helped create the production and the people who attended. My version of this play is about rebuilding our lost community, and taking the first step back into normality. Each performance was building up to a single line that Krapp says near the very end, “Be again. Be again… ” (Beckett 223). Krapp is referring to the feeling that he gets when he listens to his tapes and reminisces. But I imagine that line resonated with every person who attended. With the pandemic possibly coming to a close, we must learn to be again.
And this performance was step one. The production was performed successfully and safely in person. After each performance, many of the twenty audience members spent time catching up with friends that they have otherwise only seen through their screens in the past year. Once again, for a short time, my world was vibrant and full of warmth that I previously took for granted. Perhaps the most dramatic difference between Beckett’s original text and my own interpretation of the play is its ending. Beckett’s Krapp will continue to be alone. He exists only in his room, and nothing will ever change for him.
Whereas my Krapp was directly related to my own experience in the pandemic. So, naturally, I will go on. My pandemic struggle will end, and normality will return. And as the lights went down, I hope that the audience felt as hopeful as I did that soon, the theater will return in full force, and a renaissance of art and social connection will begin. Eggenschwiller 29
Production Photos
Photos by Alejandro Ridolfi.
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