Krapp S Last Tape And Other Shorter Plays

Krapp's Last Tape was first performed by Patrick Magee at the Royal Court Theatre in October 1958, and described as 'a solo, if that is the word, for one voice and two organs: one human, one mechanical. It fills few pages. It is perhaps the most original and important play of its length ever written.' (Roy Walker) The present volume brings together Krapp's Last Tape and Beckett's other shorter works or 'dramaticules' written for the stage. It will be complemented by a forthcoming Faber edition of dramatic works written for radio and screen. Arranged in chronological order of composition, these shorter plays exhibit the laconic means and compassionate ends of Beckett's dramatic vision. KRAPP 'Here I end this reel. Box - [ Pause.] - three, spool - [ Pause.] - five. [ Pause.] Perhaps my best years have gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back. [ Staring motionless before him.]

This collection of Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett’s dramatic pieces includes a short stage play, two radio plays, and two pantomimes. The stage play Krapp’s Last Tape evolves a shattering drama out of a monologue of a man who, at age sixty-nine, plays back the autobiographical tape he recorded on his thirty-ninth birthday. The two radio plays were commissioned by the BBC; All That Fall “plumbs the same pessimistic depths [as Waiting for Godot] in what seems a no less despairing search for human dignity” (London Times), and Embers is equally unforgettable theater, born of the ramblings of an old man and his wife. Finally, in the two pantomimes, Beckett takes drama to the point of pure abstraction with his portrayals of, in Act Without Words I, frustrated desired, and in Act Without Words I, corresponding motions of living juxtaposed in the slow despair of one man and the senselessly busy motion of another.

Samuel Beckett, one of the great avant-garde Irish dramatists and writers of the second half of the twentieth century, was born on 13 April 1906. His centenary will be celebrated throughout 2006 with performances of his major plays, including Waiting for Godot. Here are the two most famous plays for solo voice. Krapp's Last Tape finds an old man, with his tape recorder, musing over the past and future. Not I is a remarkable tour de force for a single actress, as a woman emits memories and fears. Also included are two other singular short dramas for single voice, That Time read by John Moffatt and A Piece of Monologue read by Peter Marinker.

In one play, an old man records comments while listening to the tape of a younger version of himself, and in another recalls his dead father while familiar voices speak to him from the past. These works display the quality of Beckett's vision.

Samuel Beckett, the great minimalist master and winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature, has produced some of his most widely praised work for the stage in the form of the shorter play. This complete and definitive collection of twenty-five plays and "playlets" includes Beckett's celebrated Krapp's Last Tape, Embers, Cascando, Play, Eh Joe, Not I, and Footfalls, as well as his mimes, all his radio and television plays, his screenplay for Film, his adaptation of Robert Pignet's The Old Tune, and more recent Catastrophe, What Where, Quad, and Night and Dreams. Includes: All That Fall Act Without Words I Act Without Words II Krapp's Last Tape Rough for Theatre I Rough for Theatre II Embers Rough for Radio I Rough for Radio II Words and Music Cascando Play Film The Old Tune Come and Go Eh Joe Breath Not I That Time Footfalls Ghost Trio …but the clouds… A Piece of Monologue Rockaby Ohio Impromptu Quad Catastrophe Nacht und Träume What Where

Collects over twenty short plays published by the Nobel Prize winning playwright Samuel Beckett. Includes his mimes, radio and television plays, screenplay, and adaptations of other's works.

Beckett’s Late Stage reexamines the Nobel laureate’s post-war prose and drama in the light of contemporary trauma theory. Through a series of sustained close-readings, the study demonstrates how the comings and goings of Beckett’s prose unsettles the Western philosophical tradition; it reveals how Beckett’s live theatrical productions are haunted by the rehearsal of traumatic repetition, and asks what his ghostly radio recordings might signal for twentieth-century modernity. Drawing from psychoanalytic and poststructuralist traditions, Beckett’s Late Stage explores how the traumatic symptom allows us to rethink the relationship between language, meaning, and identity after 1945.

"We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us." - Krapp Samuel Beckett’s most accessible play is also one of the twentieth century’s most moving dramas about aging, memory, and disappointment. Daniel Sack offers the first comprehensive survey of Krapp’s Last Tape (1958) with a general reader in mind. Structured around a series of questions, five approachable sections contextualize the play in the larger career of its Nobel-Prize-winning writer, explore its major thematic concerns, and offer comparative analyses with Beckett’s other signal works. Sack also uses discussions of significant productions, including those directed by the playwright himself, to ground interpretation of the play in terms of its performance and provide a useful resource to directors and actors. Both a critical and personal exploration of this haunting play, this volume is a must-read for anyone with an interest in Beckett’s work.