Where does the time go? It’s a year since Gary Oldman performed Krapp’s Last Tape in York, returning him to the Theatre Royal where at the age of 21 he played a sleepy panto cat. Now, Samuel Beckett’s play has a homecoming of its own. Oldman has brought the production – directed and designed by himself – to London’s Royal Court, where Krapp had its premiere in 1958, starring Patrick Magee. The Court is also where Oldman cut his teeth in the 80s. “I find it difficult to fully grasp, but four decades have passed,” he writes in the programme.
The sentiment is fitting: Krapp’s Last Tape is indeed an old man’s play. Beckett was 52 when it was first staged and Krapp is 69. He “heaves great sighs” as he shuffles around his den, reeling in the years through diary recordings made 30 years earlier, in which he reflects on his behaviour further back, in his late 20s. But for this Royal Court run, Krapp is accompanied by a teenage voice. The evening begins with a short new work by 19-year-old Leo Simpe-Asante, a winner of the theatre’s inaugural Young Playwrights award. It’s an audacious and generous bit of programming that signals huge confidence in the newcomer, should serve to inspire other first-time playwrights and retains the theatre’s mission to produce new writing while reviving a classic. It’s also a reminder that Krapp itself was originally a curtain-raiser – the main event in 1958 was Beckett’s Endgame.
