The production will run at the Cockpit Theatre from the 2nd to the 5th September.
Peter Marinker Credit Chris Lincé
It has been announced 84 old actor Peter Marinker, who has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and has a long history with performing Samuel Beckett plays, will perform ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’ in a new production this autumn.
In Krapp’s Last Tape, Beckett’s one-act monologue written in 1958, the audience meets a man marking his birthday alone, while listening to and reflecting on recordings he has made each year on that day. We hear a recording Krapp made at the age of 39 and within it, his reflections on tapes made in earlier years, as he makes what we are told is his last tape.
This new production, directed by Dave Wybrow, will use reel-to reel recordings made by Peter the last time he played Krapp in 1983. Live in-ear prompts, where needed, will run alongside the play, highlighting the relationship between memory and remembering, cognition and re-cognition.
Talking about the news Peter said: “As an actor I love to share other’s created characters and words. I believe them and convey them to an audience for them to believe them. Nowadays we use gadgets to remember things, to remember ourselves. Krapp uses a tape recorder to remember the words of his young self. A couple of years ago I discovered I had Alzheimer’s disease. Now I feel very excited to do the show.”
Meanwhile, director Dave Wybrow commented: “We are doing this production because of Peter’s Alzheimer’s, not in spite of it. Our relationship with memory is never perfect yet it dominates our sense of self and our sense of meaning. Krapp is the perfect play to describe that. And doing the play with Peter is the perfect way to do it. One aim is to show that creative work can be accessible to artists as well as audiences as we get older. But there is also an exploration taking place; of the role that memory, belief and decision-making inter-relate to define who we are and what we make real, moment to moment, age to age and now, this instant.”
To book tickets visit: https://www.thecockpit.org.uk/KrappsLastTape