The Last Tape (II)
(The new light above my table is a great improvement.)
(Hommage à Samuel Beckett)
Digital print on canvas
B x H: 31,5 inches x 47,24 inches / 39,37 inches x 59,06 iches / 47,24 inches x 70,87 inches
The Last Tape
Directed book the Berlin production
Translation: Elmar Tophoven
Production: Samuel Beckett
Stage: Matias
Krapp: Martin Held
Photos: Volker Canaris
Premiere: 5.10.1969 in the workshop of the Schiller Theater, Berlin
edition suhrkamp 389
First edition 1970
© Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1970
© Photo: Volker Canaris
Samuel Beckett, 1977
© Photo: Roger Pic
TAPE
(strong voice, rather pompous, clearly Krapp's at a much earlier time.) Thirty-nine today, sound as a--(Settling himself more comfortable he knocks one of the boxes off the table, curses, switches off, sweeps boxes and ledger violently to the ground, winds tape back to the beginning, switches on, resumes posture.) Thirty-nine today, sound as a bell, apart from my old weakness, and intellectually I have niw every reason to suspect at the . . . (hesitates) . . . crest of the wave--or thereabouts. Celebrated the awful occasion, as in recent years, quietly at the winehouse. Not a soul. Sat before the fire with closed eyes, separation the grain from the husks. jotted down a few notes, on the back on an envelope. Good to be back in my den in my old rags. Have just eaten I regret to say three bananas and only with difficulty restrained a fourth. Fatal things for a man with my condition. (Vehemently.) Cut 'em out! (pause.) The new light above my table is a great improvement. With all this darkness around me I feel less alone. (Pause.) In a way. (Pause.) I love to get up and move about in it, then back here to . . . (hesitates) . . . me. (pause.) Krapp.