Reading Order
Krapp's Last TapeKrapp's Last Tape Reading Order
Krapp's Last Tape (1958) by Samuel Beckett is one of the most perfectly made short plays in the canon — a man of sixty-nine (or thereabouts) sits at his table in his den on the evening of his birthday and listens to a recording he made thirty years ago, then makes another recording in which he listens again to the recording from thirty years ago and reflects on the person he used to be. The genius of the play is the gap between the two Krapps: the Krapp of the tape is full of hope, in love with a woman in a punt on a lake, convinced he is on the verge of a great literary work — and the Krapp of the stage, listening to his younger self, is alone, drinking, bitter, and aware that none of the hopes came to anything. Beckett wrote the play for Patrick Magee, whose voice he had heard reading excerpts from his work on BBC radio and thought perfectly suited to the Krapp of the tape. The play is organized around the specific act of listening: the old Krapp keeps rewinding, replaying, skipping forward, dwelling on the love scene in the punt — the act of a man trying to recover a past that is irrecoverable except on tape.
Where to start
Krapp's Last Tape (1958) — the complete text. Best Beckett reading order: Waiting for Godot → Endgame → Krapp's Last Tape → Happy Days → Molloy → Not I
Complete Krapp's Last Tape Book List
- 1Buy
Krapp's Last Tape
Samuel Beckett·1958·The complete play — the old Krapp on his birthday listening to the young Krapp on tape. One of Beckett's most perfectly made plays; the first production starred Patrick Magee at the Royal Court Theatre in London - 2Buy
Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett·1953·The companion organized around two figures waiting. The companion investigation of two figures who are unable to escape their situation; where Krapp is organized around a man alone with his past, Godot is organized around two men together with no past and no future - 3Buy
Endgame
Samuel Beckett·1957·The companion organized around characters who are stuck. The companion Beckett play organized around the relationship between those who remain and those who have left or died: Clov and Hamm; Nagg and Nell in their ashcans - 4Buy
Happy Days
Samuel Beckett·1961·The companion organized around a single figure's compulsive monologue — Winnie buried in her mound. The companion Beckett play as an investigation of the relationship between the habit of talking and the existence that talking is supposed to organize or sustain - 5Buy
Molloy
Samuel Beckett·1951·The first volume of Beckett's prose trilogy. The companion Beckett prose work as an investigation of the disintegration of memory, identity, and intention: Molloy cannot remember where he is going or why, and Moran who is sent to find him gradually becomes him. The relationship between the Krapp of the tape and the Krapp of the stage is the relationship between Molloy and Moran: the man who was and the man who is - 6Buy
Proust
Samuel Beckett·1931·Beckett's early critical study of Proust's A la recherche — focused on involuntary memory. The companion to Krapp as Beckett's most sustained investigation of what memory is and what we want from it: Beckett argues that voluntary memory falsifies the past and only involuntary memory can recover it, and this is also what Krapp discovers when he listens to his tapes - 7Buy
Ohio Impromptu
Samuel Beckett·1981·The late companion Beckett play organized around listening — a reader reads to a listener. The companion investigation of the same question that organizes Krapp: what is the relationship between the one who speaks and the one who listens, when both are versions of the same person? - 8Buy
That Time
Samuel Beckett·1976·The companion late Beckett play organized around three voices (all the same voice) speaking to a face that listens. The companion to Krapp as an investigation of the relationship between the person who remembers and the memories that constitute them: the three voices speak from three different moments in the past, and the face that listens is the self that has survived all three
Krapp's Last Tape — Frequently Asked Questions
What happens in Krapp's Last Tape?
An old man (Krapp) sits alone in his den on his birthday with his tape recorder and a box of spools. He plays one of the tapes — made thirty years ago on his thirty-ninth birthday — in which the younger Krapp himself listens to an even earlier tape and reflects on his life. The younger Krapp is in love, hopeful about his work, full of resolution; the old Krapp who listens to him is contemptuous, alone, and aware that none of the hopes came to anything. The old Krapp rewinds, plays the love scene in the punt again, fast-forwards past sections he finds embarrassing, and eventually makes a new tape — a brief, dejected recording — before switching it off and sitting in the dark.
What does the tape recorder represent in Krapp's Last Tape?
The tape recorder represents the objectified past — the self that continues to exist in a form that can be replayed, rewound, and fast-forwarded, but not changed. Krapp has kept birthday recordings for most of his adult life, and the tapes are a kind of external memory system: the past preserved in a form more permanent and exact than biological memory. But the play's subject is the gap between the preserved past and the living present: the Krapp on the tape is not the Krapp listening, and no amount of replaying can close that gap. The tape is both Krapp's lifeline to his past self and the proof that his past self is gone.
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