Krapp's Last Tape letter to Rosset's editorial assistant, Judith Schmidt, on 11 May 1959, Beckett referred to the "staging" of "Krapp's Last Tape" as its 'creation'," and he made numerous significant changes to the text over the years as he was involved in directing the play. The first German performance, on 28 September 1959, was directed by Walter Henn at Berlin's "Schillertheater", where 10 years later, on 5 October 1969, Samuel Beckett himself staged his text in a most successful performance (with Martin Held as Krapp). The first American performance, on 14 January 1960, was directed by Alan Schneider and starred Donald Davis.
Krapp's Last Tape this but allows the tape to play on until the final curtain. "Krapp’s spool of life is almost wound, and the silent tape is both the time it has left to run and the silence into which he must pass." Whereas the younger Krapp talks about the "fire in me" the tired old man who sits listening is simply "burning to be gone." The title of the play seems obvious, that what we have witnessed is the recording of Krapp’s final tape, "yet there is an ambiguity: 'last' can mean 'most recent' as well as 'ultimate'. The speaker in Browning's