Krapp's Last Tape Krapp's Last Tape Krapp's Last Tape is a one-act play, in English, by Samuel Beckett. With a cast of one man, it was written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue". (Patrick Magee is familiar to many moviegoers as the writer who Alex cripples while invading his home and raping his wife in "A Clockwork Orange".) It was inspired by Beckett's experience of listening to Magee reading extracts from "Molloy" and "From an Abandoned Work" on the BBC Third Programme in December 1957. The play was first performed as a curtain raiser to "Endgame" (from 28
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