Wilbury Theatre Group Announces KRAPP'S LAST TAPE

The Wilbury Theatre Group has announced a limited run of Krapp's Last Tape - Samuel Beckett's lauded one-act play about the effects of time and loneliness, and the longing for past glories. Performances run for limited audiences in the Main Hall at the WaterFire Arts Center April 9-25, 2021.

Directed by Wilbury Group Artistic Director Josh Short and featuring Tom Roberts in the titular role, Krapp's Last Tape has long been considered the most affectionate portrait of a character that Beckett has ever done: an aging man who lives a lonely and shabby existence in a darkened room. At year's end, on the dawn of his 69th birthday, he takes out a bottle of wine, a banana and his tape recorder, and he listens as his own voice from the past recounts the glories and hopes of his youth.

"Beckett's brilliant, funny, and moving meditation on grief and loneliness resonates today more powerfully than ever before" says director Josh Short. "To be able to work with Tom and this creative team is a joy, and I'm sure I speak for all of us involved when I say that we are incredibly grateful for this opportunity to stage it safely for audiences in the the beautiful main hall at the WaterFire Arts Center. I hope that this experience, while socially distanced, provides some much-needed opportunities for connection and empathy that we need right now."

Krapp's Last Tape was written by Samuel Beckett in 1958 for Irish actor Patrick Magee as the monologue of a man who, at age sixty-nine, plays back the autobiographical tape he recorded on his thirty-ninth birthday. Since then, the play has been lauded as one of Beckett's most moving and darkly humorous works.

"Beckett's brilliant, funny, and moving meditation on grief and loneliness resonates today more powerfully than ever before" says director Josh Short. "To be able to work with Tom and this creative team is a joy, and I'm sure I speak for all of us involved when I say that we are incredibly grateful for this opportunity to stage it safely for audiences in the the beautiful main hall at the WaterFire Arts Center. I hope that this experience, while socially distanced, provides some much-needed opportunities for connection and empathy that we need right now."

Krapp's Last Tape was written by Samuel Beckett in 1958 for Irish actor Patrick Magee as the monologue of a man who, at age sixty-nine, plays back the autobiographical tape he recorded on his thirty-ninth birthday. Since then, the play has been lauded as one of Beckett's most moving and darkly humorous works.

About Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett:

A tragedy in one act for a lone actor, a tape recorder, and many, many bananas, Krapp's Last Tape is one of Samuel Beckett's most personal works for the stage-a feat of great precision and tense economy. Featuring discreet details from the writer's own life, this dramatization of the messy truths of memory and time illuminates the predicament we face when we become strangers to our former selves.

In the Wilbury Group production, Tom Roberts plays the titular Krapp, an embittered and dyspeptic man who marks the occasion of his 69th birthday by revisiting his 39-year-old self. Veering from outrage to contemplation, Krapp exhibits the ticks and tocks of a beaten man whose spirit unravels as the tapes unspool in "all that old misery" of lost time.

About the Wilbury Theatre Group production:

Tom Roberts, as Krapp

Krapp's Last Tape

by Samuel Beckett

directed by Josh Short

Costume Design by Erin Meghan Donnelly
a??Lighting Design by Max Ponticelli
Sound Design by Andy Russ
Set & Props Design by Monica Shinn
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Stage Management by Annalee Cavallaro
Assistant Stage Management by a??Shoshana Adler

Front of House Management - Christine Treglia & Renee Bessette
Advising Epidemiologist - Brandon Marshall, PhD

RUN TIME: Approx. 40 minutes

For tickets or more information, visit thewilburygroup.org/krapps-last-tape

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