Review by Clara
Tickets were gifted in return for an honest review
Tickets were gifted in return for an honest review
The more I learn about the Royal Court, the more there is to learn. Much of its programming feels fresh and experimental, such that it is easy to forget that established names built their reputations here, once upon a time.
In its 70th anniversary season, the Royal Court has paired Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape with Leo Simpe-Asante’s Godot’s To-Do List. Both place a man in conversation with a machine (which to an extent takes on human-like qualities). Krapp looks backward — he’s an archivist making sense of his life with the benefit of hindsight. He’s trapped by what he has done, or not done. Godot looks forward — he’s making sense of all that is asked of him. He’s trapped by what he has left to do. Both men seem to be losing their fight with time.
Godot’s To-Do List is a response to Samuel Beckett’s famous (or infamous, depending on who you ask) Waiting for Godot. It answers the question: Why has Godot kept Vladimir and Estragon waiting?
Godot (played by Shakeel Haakim) is, among other things, having an existential crisis of his own. He is waylaid by a disembodied voice (played offstage by Flora Ashton) which announces tasks for him to complete. The first few minutes, without words, is a masterclass in using gesture, music, lighting, and timing to convey a story. The play really comes into its own when Godot verbalises his existential crisis in a torrent. Even that — “have an existential crisis” — is one of his tasks to complete.
Godot (played by Shakeel Haakim) is, among other things, having an existential crisis of his own. He is waylaid by a disembodied voice (played offstage by Flora Ashton) which announces tasks for him to complete. The first few minutes, without words, is a masterclass in using gesture, music, lighting, and timing to convey a story. The play really comes into its own when Godot verbalises his existential crisis in a torrent. Even that — “have an existential crisis” — is one of his tasks to complete.
As a musical theatre student, Leo Simpe-Asante noted that rhythm was an element he wanted to get right when writing the play. Shakeel Haakim performs the rhythm wonderfully, particularly apparent in the fast-paced passages. Flora Ashton’s voice work also deserves plaudits — the voice shifts throughout the play: unempathetic, cheerful, stern, condescending, encouraging, and maybe even caring.
Getting to know Godot (after enduring all that waiting!), witnessing his bafflement and struggle and striving, humanises him. But I would wager that our reaction to the voice, the To-Do List, greatly depends on what we impute its motives to be, and whether we read authenticity in its emotional valence. Is its cheerfulness in fact schadenfreude? How has the collection of tasks been assembled? What exactly are the consequences if Godot does not obey? Why does Godot give over his agency to the To-Do List? There are no definitive answers, and that is part of the joy (and frustration) of absurdist theatre.
It’s been, astonishingly, almost 40 years since Gary Oldman previously treaded the boards of the Royal Court. He’s been far from idle, inhabiting iconic characters on the silver screen, including Harry Potter’s godfather Sirius Black, police commissioner James Gordon in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, unassuming intelligence officer George Smiley in John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. His portrayal of Churchill garnered him an armful of awards from both sides of the Atlantic, including an Oscar and a BAFTA.
 |
| Photo by Jack English |
Gary Oldman’s note in this production’s programme gives us a glimpse into how personally significant it is for him to return to York Theatre Royal, where he made his professional debut, then to transfer to the Royal Court. He credits the Royal Court as his “biggest artistic influence in every way”.
It’s sometimes said that a good actor would be able to read a phone book and hold the audience’s attention. In Krapp’s Last Tape, the measure might instead be that a good actor would be able to eat bananas and hold the audience’s attention. We all watched Gary Oldman eat bananas. Precisely two, though more make an appearance.
Samuel Beckett provides rather detailed stage directions for Krapp’s Last Tape. “Cracked voice” — check. “Disordered grey hair” — check, though far from the most disordered it’s been during Gary Oldman’s film roles. Gary Oldman has a triple role as director, designer and performer, and has diverged from the stage directions in a few ways. Krapp sits rather than paces as he eats bananas. He doesn’t slip on a banana peel. Samuel Beckett’s imagined Krapp leaves the stage at a few points, while Gary Oldman’s is present the entire time.
The set is a jumbled attic, a creative space that has devolved into a storeroom. It would be generous to call it an archive. Dig around in the drawers and you might find rotted banana peels. A lamp above Krapp’s desk throws a small halo of warm light, holding back the darkness. It’s occasionally joined by the light of a bare bulb when he searches for something further off: a hefty dictionary, or a new tape.
As Krapp sits at his desk on his birthday to reminisce and to record, we learn that he has spools and spools of tape stretching back through the decades. Through the medium of sound recording, Krapp enters a kind of conversation with a version of himself who is thirty years younger, who had then supposed he was “intellectually [...] at the… crest of the wave — or thereabouts”. He mocks his younger self. Their laughs overlap. They mock an even younger Krapp together.
As Krapp sits at his desk on his birthday to reminisce and to record, we learn that he has spools and spools of tape stretching back through the decades. Through the medium of sound recording, Krapp enters a kind of conversation with a version of himself who is thirty years younger, who had then supposed he was “intellectually [...] at the… crest of the wave — or thereabouts”. He mocks his younger self. Their laughs overlap. They mock an even younger Krapp together.
Krapp’s tapes perhaps afford him the illusion that he can “be again”, albeit only in the moments of listening and recalling. But they also capture him in their whirlpool-like tendency. He gets caught in the past, treading and re-treading old patterns.
His is a life of regrets, holding onto fragmentary memories and wishing he could rewind the spool of his life. His 39-year-old self was full of vitality, and hopeful about the future. Now, at 69, that optimism is gone. His younger self defiantly declares that he wouldn’t want his best years back, but present-day Krapp has no retort to his former self. His silence is telling.
Krapp fades into darkness like the play, the scene, the suspended moment. Last to fade is the glow of the tape recorder.
But as Krapp fades, he is imprinted into my memory. Gary Oldman’s gaze conveys a tortured depth.
Both Leo Simpe-Asante’s homage to Beckett and Krapp’s Last Tape are deceptively simple but withstand our examination. The two plays certainly prompt philosophical reflection. I’d like to turn these plays over and over in my mind, like polishing a stone. Maybe, like Krapp, I’ll briefly glimpse “chrysolite” — gleaming, crystal clear, beauty revealed.
Both Leo Simpe-Asante’s homage to Beckett and Krapp’s Last Tape are deceptively simple but withstand our examination. The two plays certainly prompt philosophical reflection. I’d like to turn these plays over and over in my mind, like polishing a stone. Maybe, like Krapp, I’ll briefly glimpse “chrysolite” — gleaming, crystal clear, beauty revealed.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘Krapp’s Last Tape / Godot’s To-Do List’ runs at the Royal Court Theatre in London until Saturday, 30 May 2026. The production is sold out, but the website lists ways to access tickets which may become available: https://royalcourttheatre.com/events/krapps-last-tape-godots-to-do-list/
Post a Comment