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 The curtain rises on "[a] late evening in the future." It is Krapp’s 69th birthday and he hauls out his old tape recorder, reviews one of the earlier years – the recording he made when he was 39 – and makes a new recording commenting on the last 12 months. Krapp is sitting in his den, lit by the white light above his desk. Black-and-white imagery continues throughout. On his desk are a tape-recorder and a number of tins containing reels of recorded tape. He consults a ledger. The tape he is looking to review is the fifth tape in