Krapp's Last Tape
- Steve Pratt
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
Samuel Beckett
York Theatre Royal production, Doug Urbanski
York Theatre Royal
April 28-May 17, 2025: 55mins
As requested by the management, I sat on my hands to prevent them clapping "in order to enhance the audience experience" as the house lights dimmed and the stage lights rose.
"Please don’t applaud Gary Oldman’s entrance", notices asked. Applause was clearly and rightly expected: this was the return to York Theatre Royal of the Oscar-winning Hollywood actor, making his stage comeback at the theatre where he had his first professional acting job four decades ago.
Oldman arrived in York amid a fuss about movie stars - particularly American ones - ruining London's West End because they often can’t act as well on stage as they can in front of a camera.
Oldman doesn’t fit into that category. He was a rising, award-winning theatre actor with Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal Court roles behind him before Hollywood came calling. He has the credentials to be a stage actor, though I’m unsure if this particular play shows them to the full. How nice it would be to see him in a full-length play; Krapp’s Last Tape lasts less than an hour.
Oldman has always wanted to return to the stage and York is where it all began for him; where he played, among other roles, Dick Whittington’s cat in pantomime as a member of the repertory company in his first professional job. Returning to York is the completion of a circle and, as Beckett’s play features an elderly man looking back over his past, Oldman’s return is made all the more poignant.
Beckett's masterpiece, first performed at London’s Royal Court in 1958, is not so much a one-man play as a duologue between an elderly man and the voice on the tapes he makes at every birthday. You get a lot of Gary Oldmans for your money - one in person and another, the same character at various ages, on the tapes.
Krapp has kept an audio diary of his life and at 69 (Oldman is two years younger) prepares to make his final tape. As he plays past tapes we are offered a fascinating insight into lost loves, unfulfilled ambitions and a life of disappointments.
Oldman directs himself and is also the designer. As an actor he’s a master of detail, be it a look, a sign or a small movement. Much of what we hear is fascinating stuff, yet this is a play that can alienate, with its long silences, lack of action (Oldman spends much of the time seated behind a desk) and a central character who isn't exactly endearing.
The star doesn’t speak for the first 10 minutes or so. He eats a banana, then another banana. He potters about the junkyard he calls home and arranges things on his desk before uttering a sentence. He eats a third banana before the tape recorder is found, dusted off and tapes are played.
Interesting actorly fact: the reel-to-reel tape recorder (ask your parents or grandparents what that is) is the same one used by John Hurt and Michael Gambon when they played Krapp. Oldman dedicates the performance to them.
Actors of this calibre are drawn to the role for the many chances provided to display their versatility, the voice on the tape apparently having more lines than the live-and-kicking performer before us.
Having freed my hands I was able to applaud a performance that is very, very good, in an assured production - but which, for me, falls short of greatness.
Krapp’s Last Tape continues at York Theatre Royal until May 17, and reviews might be the closest you get without already-secured tickets.
The York run is sold out, there are no plans to transfer to London, Broadway or any other theatre, and it won't be filmed for screening in cinemas. Check with the box office (01904 623568) for returns.
More info and tickets here
