\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hat a lot of Krapp. Pardon my French but Samuel Beckett\u2019s haunting 1958 masterpiece about regret and isolation is having a moment. Stephen Rea recently took Krapp\u2019s Last Tape on an international tour, Gary Oldman returned to the stage after decades away to deliver the tragicomic one-man show and this summer Stockard Channing will direct it at the Edinburgh fringe, with David Westhead as Krapp. Beckett\u2019s eponymous loner, who sits in his dark den and ritually listens to tapes he made as a younger man, is riding a new wave of popularity.<\/p>\n Peter Marinker first played Krapp half a lifetime ago and is preparing to star in a new production, reusing the tapes he recorded in 1983. How does he feel listening back now? \u201cI thought of redoing them \u2013 it could have been better,\u201d he says when we meet at the tiny Cockpit theatre in London. That assessment matches the spirit of the self-lacerating Krapp who looks back not just in anger but anguish. Marinker quotes Dennis Potter, who said we should consider our past with \u201ctender contempt\u201d. He adds wryly: \u201cThat rang a bell.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markGodot means something completely different if you\u2019ve known people with Alzheimer\u2019s<\/p>\n At 84, Marinker is older than most Krapps \u2013 Beckett gave this sad clown\u2019s age as 69 \u2013 and his portrayal of a man sifting through his memories will be further coloured by the actor\u2019s symptoms of Alzheimer\u2019s disease. He was diagnosed two years ago. \u201cI had been playing Gandalf in a musical version of The Lord of the Rings at the Watermill,\u201d he says. \u201cI would have these little dropouts on stage and I\u2019d just pause and then carry on.\u201d As the memory lapses continued, an understudy eventually took over. \u201cAt least I got to take my wife and see the play,\u201d he says with a smile. \u201cI didn\u2019t know it was Alzheimer\u2019s, but then I had an MRI.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018I would have these little dropouts\u2019 \u2026 as Gandalf (front) in The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale. <\/span> Photograph: Pamela Raith<\/p>\n He later got a role in Netflix series Death by Lightning: \u201cI did manage to learn the lines, but it was quite a challenge.\u201d For Krapp\u2019s Last Tape, he will receive in-ear prompts if required. The revival was suggested by the Cockpit\u2019s director, Dave Wybrow, who sees it partly as an opportunity to revisit themes from Waiting for Godot, which they did together. \u201cAll the way through Godot, there\u2019s the misremembered and half-remembered,\u201d says Wybrow. \u201cGodot means something completely different if you\u2019ve known people with Alzheimer\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n Marinker saw Beckett\u2019s own German-language production of Godot at the Royal Court in 1976: \u201cI didn\u2019t get it but I started finding any bits of Beckett that I could.\u201d Raised in the Canadian Prairies, he made his school acting debut in a role that oddly foreshadowed Beckett\u2019s 1980 play Rockaby. \u201cI went to a boarding school with an English teacher who had been an actor and I think that was the seed. My first performance was as a grandmother. It was a boys\u2019 school, and the curtain went up, and I was knitting in a rocking chair. And the howl of laughter of the boys!\u201d<\/p>\n In the early 00s, Beckett\u2019s publisher John Calder and Marinker co-founded the Godot Company to stage his works. Edward Beckett, the playwright\u2019s nephew who became executor of his estate, \u201clikes what Peter does\u201d says Wybrow. As such, they have the blessing for changes to Krapp\u2019s traditional costume of too-short trousers, waistcoat and \u201csurprising\u201d boots. Marinker will be wearing \u201cmy wife\u2019s dressing gown\u201d. He asks: \u201cI wonder whether I could be barefoot?\u201d Wybrow replies: \u201cThe only thing is you\u2019ve got to slip on the banana skin.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s because Krapp, shown to be an addict in several ways, can\u2019t resist his beloved bananas. In a play with heavily detailed stage directions, Krapp strokes, peels and munches them with as much curiosity as when he pronounces \u201cspooool\u201d, enjoying the taste of language too. In what is very much an old man\u2019s play, such moments add what Wybrow calls \u201ca childish level of engagement with the world\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/span>Past roles \u2026 Marinker in The XYY Man in 1976.<\/span> Photograph: ITV\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n The costume is his wife\u2019s but his Irish accent on stage is \u201cmy mother\u2019s voice\u201d, says Marinker, \u201cbecause she read lots of things to me\u201d. His performance will draw on his past \u2013 he describes his own Krapp-like study at home, \u201cfilled with chaos and recordings of all the things I\u2019ve done\u201d \u2013 but also his recent interest in biologist Jeremy Griffith\u2019s research into intellect and instinct, which chimes with Krapp\u2019s inner conflict.<\/p>\n Marinker clearly relishes returning to fringe theatre, a passion subsidised by his colourful work on video game franchises including Dark Souls, playing fantastical roles such as the serpent Darkstalker Kaathe. His voice acting was honed on BBC radio \u2013 \u201cI did a lot of Poetry Please, Words and Music\u201d \u2013 and recording books for the Royal National Institute of Blind People. He even turns up in Paddington in Peru. \u201cI thought I\u2019d be doing Paddington,\u201d he says mischievously. \u201cBut no, I was an old bear.\u201d Over his career he has been heard more than seen. \u201cWhat is good is that you\u2019re invisible.\u201d Working with Pierce Brosnan on The Tailor of Panama, he saw the Bond star mobbed by crowds. \u201cAnd I thought, no \u2026 You don\u2019t want that.\u201d<\/p>\n Amid such recollections, Marinker peppers our conversation with lines from Beckett. When his memory fails, he refers to Beckett\u2019s searching poem What Is the Word, written after the playwright\u2019s late symptoms of aphasia. And, with a voice full of curiosity, Marinker closes our conversation reading me a recent poem of his own, A Foggy Brain in London Town. It ends quite beautifully:<\/p>\n Well it\u2019s the lost memories Krapp\u2019s Last Tape is at the Cockpit theatre, London, 2-5 September<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What a lot of Krapp. Pardon my French but Samuel Beckett\u2019s haunting 1958 masterpiece about regret and isolation is having a moment. Stephen Rea recently took Krapp\u2019s Last Tape on an international tour, Gary Oldman returned to the stage after decades away to deliver the tragicomic one-man show and this summer Stockard Channing will direct<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[10032,8004,24841,24840,3783,6717,1994,622,10546,5502],"class_list":{"0":"post-50613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-alzheimers","9":"tag-carry","10":"tag-krapps","11":"tag-marinker","12":"tag-pause","13":"tag-performing","14":"tag-peter","15":"tag-star","16":"tag-tape","17":"tag-theatre"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Where? When? Who?
What?
I can\u2019t tell you
I fish without a bait
there\u2019s nothing on the hook
What have I forgotten this time?
I just can\u2019t tell you
But I am telling you,
NOW.<\/em><\/p>\n