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16-20 June 1999, University Theatre, The Arts Centre
Production credits
1958: Elvis went into the army. Miles Davis cut a record with Gil Evans. Johnny Devlin came to Christchurch. Elric Hooper played the Fool in Ngaio Marsh's King Lear. And Samuel Beckett wrote Krapp's Last Tape, a comic-tragic play in which a man at the end of his life, and the end of the millennium, attempts to rekindle his remembered youth by electronic means. But where is his memory to be found? In the remnants of his voice, recorded years ago? In his present image, a photograph, a video? In his body, when he sleeps, dreams, eats a banana? The fifties held such promise. The dream of consumerist prosperity and personal fulfilment - the overriding fantasy of Western Civilisation - was effervescent. It was warm in the fifities. Now, with technology making almost anything possible, the dream has grown cold. When did he lose hope? When did we?
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A complete recording of this production exists in Free Theatre's archives.

Krapp's Last Tape followed Alan Brunton's direction of Love on a Bicycle (1998) and Comrade Savage (1998) for Free Theatre. Alan Brunton also assisted Free Theatre on the project The Last Days of Mankind (2000).

Research

Haydn Kerr, used Krapp's Last Tape as material for his MA research Clowning in the Avant-garde: Antonin Artaud's The Philosopher's Stone and Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, University of Canterbury, 2008

Publicity

Krapp's Last Tape
Free Theatre Press Release

Brunton is 'perfect Krapp'
Anna Dunbar, The Press, 15 June 1999

Philosophy on stage
The Mail, 15 June 1999

Krapp's Last Tape
CANTA, 16 June 1999

Red Mole features in Beckett play
Chronicle, June 1999

Former Red Mole is 1999 writer-in-residence
Chronicle, June 1999
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Reviews

That one certainty in life, bequeathed to us by the philosopher Decartes, is eroded as the light fades and the tape runs off the spool, an end which was a superbly dramatic moment, supremely crafted by the director. Alan Brunton, as Krapp, does a remarkably good job.

Beckett play by Free Theatre

Alan Scott, The Press, 21 June 1999
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After replaying the lyrical and unforgettable description of lovers lying in a moving punt, old Krapp heard his younger self brashly declare that he wouldn't want his best years back. Brunton stared motionlessly into blackness as the tape hissed to its end, the lights came down in the slowest fade possible and the audience sat in as close to perfect stillness as you'll get in this hyperactive age, with the after-image of Krapp's staring eyes printed indelibly on their own retinas. The spare elegance of the writing, Beckett's searing vision and Brunton's focused intensity combined here to make compelling and bleak theatre.

Krapp's Last Tape

Elizabeth O'Connor, Theatre News, Aug 1999
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  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • A brief history...
    • Manifestos and Writings
    • Who We Are
    • The University Connection
    • Shirley Horrocks documentary
    • Training and Devising
    • Home, Space and Design
  • WHATS ON
    • The Passionate Puritan
  • EDUCATION
    • Kids Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Adult workshops
  • PRODUCTIONS 1979 - present
    • The Cat Eleonore
    • The Deadbeat Opera
    • Babylon Berlin
    • Beggars Banquet
    • Woyzeck
    • The Axe
    • Endgame
    • Digitising Performance
    • Erewhon: Over the Range
    • A Summer Night's Dream
    • How Dare You
    • A Winter's Tale
    • Ars Acustica
    • Alice
    • The Black Rider
    • Frankenstein
    • The Mauricio Kagel Project
    • Footprints/Tapuwae
    • Kafka's Amerika
    • Ubu Nights >
      • Past Ubu Nights >
        • Ma Ubu Night
        • Ubu Through the Looking Glass
        • Ubu in Wonderland Ubu Night
        • Frankenstein Ubu Night
        • Casablanca Ubu Night
        • Faust Ubu Night
        • Not Hamlet Ubu Night
        • Punk Ubu Night
        • The Art of the Deal Ubu Night
        • Crossroads Ubu Night
        • Ubu Shows Us the Way to Brecht's Whiskey Bar
        • The Devil and the Blues Ubu Night
        • Bowie Ubu Night
        • Warhol Ubu Night
        • Berlin Kabarette
        • Beat Ubu Night
        • Twin Peaks Ubu Night
        • David Lynch Ubu Night
        • Kafka Ubu Night
        • Tango Ubu Night
        • Ubu Ubu Night
        • Lovecraft Ubu Night
    • Canterbury Tales
    • The Soldier's Tale
    • Bluebeard's Castle >
      • Bluebeard's Castle credits
    • I Sing the Body Electric
    • Big Heads Protest
    • Hereafter
    • Passion, Pulse and Power
    • The Earthquake in Chile
    • Don Giovanni Invites you to Dinner
    • Doctor Faustus
    • The Marvellous Corricks >
      • Corricks - Credits
    • Distraction Camp
    • Remake
    • Ella and Susn
    • There and Back Again
    • Faust Chroma
    • Enigma Emmy Goering/Nico Sphinx of Ice
    • Change Proposal
    • Faust Feast
    • Diana Down Under
    • Philoctetes >
      • Production Credits - Piloctetes
    • Fantasia
    • Christmas Shopping
    • Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
    • Achternbusch in the Antipodes
    • Caucasian Chalk Circle
    • Samson Airline
    • Antigone
    • Kabarett Kabul
    • Footprints/Tapuwae
    • The Well Intentioned Wife
    • The Last Days of Mankind
    • Bakkhai / Diotek
    • Krapp's Last Tape
    • Murderer Hope of Women / The Philosopher's Stone
    • Comrade Savage
    • Love on a Bicycle
    • Crusoe: A Lapsarian Mass in Twelve Movements
    • Medea
    • Songs to the Judges
    • Resolution Island
    • Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus
    • The Empire Builders
    • States of Shock
    • Robinson Crusoe or: I That Was Born To Be My Own Destroyer
    • Power
    • MedeaMaterial
    • Salome
    • Electra
    • The Girl Who Sings Waterfalls
    • Hamletmachine
    • Oresteia
    • A Respectable Wedding
    • Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
    • Cloudkiwiland
    • Double Act / Postponeless >
      • double act credits
    • Preversions
    • The Mortal Pleasure of Wander Lust
    • Red Cross & Takeaway
    • Lulu
    • Cowboy Mouth
    • The Meeting >
      • the meeting credits
    • Action / Tongues
    • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
    • A Letter from L
    • Dinosaurs and All the Rubbish / The Hunting of the Snark
    • Free Theatre Christmas Show
    • The Ride Across Lake Constance
    • Electra
    • In Three Minds
    • The Rapist Over Suzannah
    • 1984: The Future Is Now
    • Make-up Ground down / Texts for Decomposition
    • Leonce and Lena
    • Court Case: Free Theatre vs The Arts Centre
    • The Almost Free Theatre Kabernette
    • The Joffongract
    • King Lear
    • Kabarett
    • King Ubu
    • Black Cat Cabaret
    • The Gas Heart/Ox on the Roof/The Mirror Wardrobe One Fine Evening
    • Jazz Cellar Dada / Heavy Metal Cabaret
    • Round Dance
    • Woyzeck
  • Te Puna Toi
    • Past Te Puna Toi Projects
    • Artists in Residence
  • SUPPORT
  • CONTACT
  • CNZ application