Peter O'Shaughnessy historian and folklorist". Peter O'Shaughnessy Peter O'Shaughnessy OAM (5 October 1923 – 17 July 2013) was an Australian actor, theatre director, producer and writer who presented the work of playwrights ranging from Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov to modern dramatists, such as Ionesco, Pinter and Beckett. He is best known as mentor to and collaborator with comedian Barry Humphries in his early career. O'Shaughnessy was a major exponent of Samuel Beckett, both in Australia and in Ireland. He produced the first "Waiting for Godot" in Australia in 1957. He played Krapp in the Australian premier of "Krapp's Last Tape" at
Krapp's Last Tape worked up when his younger self starts enthusing about this. He fast-forwards almost to the end of the tape to escape the onslaught of words. Suddenly the mood has changed and he finds himself in the middle of a description of a romantic liaison between himself and a woman in a punt. Krapp lets it play out and then rewinds the tape to hear the complete episode. Throughout it he remains transfixed and visibly relives the moment while it is retold. Afterwards, Krapp carefully removes this tape, locates a fresh one, loads it, checks the back of an envelope where