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Stage

Technology triggers a transformation

Altering a Samuel Beckett play is frowned upon. But an innovation included in Krapp's Last Tape seems appropriate.

By TOM VALEO
Published May 11, 2006

Samuel Beckett was particular about the staging of his plays. He even tried to shut down a production of Endgame because the director wanted to set the action in a subway station instead of the "bare interior" Beckett specified in the script.

But Beckett probably would have applauded a major change in his Krapp's Last Tape introduced by the director, T. Scott Wooten.

The play is about a 79-year-old man sitting with a tape recorder, listening to himself at the age of 39 describe his disappointments, regrets and frustrations.

Wooten has abandoned the tape recorder. Instead, he has Krapp watch a videotape of himself, which allows the audience to see the sole actor, Steve Garland, give two performances simultaneously.

"I thought it would be interesting to upgrade the technology Krapp uses to record himself," said Wooten, who is directing the play for Quirky White Chicks Productions and Renegade Theatre Project at Studio@620 in St. Petersburg. "The Beckett estate says, don't change anything in the script, and don't change the stage directions. But never once does Krapp say 'audio' tape. He always says 'tape player.' So we're still doing tape, but it's videotape, not audiotape."

Beckett, who would have been 100 this year, wrote Krapp's Last Tape shortly after he turned 50. The first production was in 1958, and it continues to be one of his most popular plays, but as far as Wooten knows, it has never been done with video instead of audio.

In this production, Garland, 39, will perform in makeup to look 40 years older. On stage, he will be in front of a large-screen TV which displays video of him as a vigorous, healthy 39-year-old Krapp.

"In the video, we have warm light on him," Wooten said. "He looks very healthy. On stage we use a very harsh fluorescent desk lamp that splashes up from below, creating shadows that accentuate the wrinkles and the gray hair. The light makes him look sick and icky."

Garland said he was terrified at first when asked to take on the role.

"It's Beckett, so there's that important-Beckett-play mystique going on," he said. "Hume Cronyn did the role, and John Hurt, and Harold Pinter did it last year. Once we got into rehearsal, however, it wasn't such a big bugaboo. Beckett's plays become freighted with layers of importance that as an actor I can strip away. In fact, I have to strip it away so I can build it back up."

As for playing an old man, Garland said he feels he's already had practice.

"I've always been an old soul with a melancholy spirit," he said. "I have no problem relating to regret, and the ways life hasn't treated me well, and the things I've done to derail myself. I can relate to that."

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Krapp's Last Tape, 9 p.m. Saturday and May 20, and 7 p.m. Sunday and May 21 at Studio@620 620 First Ave. S, St. Petersburg. $10. 727 821-5407.

[Last modified May 10, 2006, 12:06:13]