Krapp's Last Tape

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Krapp’s Last Tape

Krapp’s Last Tape, a play by Samuel Beckett is a very interesting peek at one period of a man’s life, and his reflections on his past. Samuel Beckett isn’t your average playwright, and in accordance with that, I found this play to be very different and intriguing. Beckett seems to be using his character, Krapp, to illustrate his theories in existentialism, which makes for a very interesting theme and outcome to the play.
The style of this play is actually one that I have never encountered before. It was a realistic person with a somewhat realistic set, but in no reality that I have ever seen. It says in the introduction to the play that absurdists, such as Beckett, “felt that the ridiculous- or absurd - nature of existence should be reflected in the dramatic elements of their plays”. I suppose that by having Krapp, the main and only character sit in a desolate spot listening to himself on a tape from thirty years ago and muse over his past is supposed to reflect the absurdity that he thinks his life has been. The style that worked for me personally because the ridiculousness that Krapp regarded his life to have full of was not only apparent in the diction that Krapp spoke, but also in the stage directions that Beckett gave the character. Even the title tells us something that we do not get in the lines of the play, which is that this is Krapp’s last tape, which most likely means he will die after it is made. One almost learns more about Krapp through the stage direction of the play than through the actual dialogue that he spoke. On a personal note, I much prefer Beckett’s work in the style of a play, because I think his ideas are easier to comprehend due to his extensive and detailed stage directions. I once tried to read a novel of Beckett’s and the dialogue, along with the description of the character’s surroundings was so confusing that I actually had to stop reading it after the f...