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
Waiting for Godot to stage the play. The first night had been on 29 November 1953. He wrote to Beckett in October 1954: "You will be surprised to be receiving a letter about your play "Waiting for Godot", from a prison where so many thieves, forgers, toughs, homos, crazy men and killers spend this bitch of a life waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting. Waiting for what? Godot? Perhaps." Beckett was intensely moved and intended to visit the prison to see a last performance of the play but it never happened. This marked "the beginning of Beckett's enduring links with prisons and