Honestly, you wait ages for a decent Krapp and then three come along at once. Samuel Beckett’s pared-down, tragicomic 1958 miniature sees a 69-year-old man with a funny name, surrounded by tins containing the reel-to-reel tape recordings he made before each birthday, listening in wonderment and disgust to his 39-year-old self. Gary Oldman, 67, has just opened in the play at York Theatre Royal, where he began his career.
It’s been announced that Samuel West will do a Krapp aged 69 in 2036, using recordings he made when he was 39. And now here’s the great Irish actor Stephen Rea, 78, leaning into the bleak, wintry comedy of the script, interacting with sessions that he recorded in 2009, in the hope someone would someday ask him to play Krapp.
