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 up simply leaving the ball with the creature even though a part of him regrets not hanging onto it as some kind of memento. Krapp at 69 is more interested in his younger self's use of the rather archaic word "viduity" (Beckett had originally used "widowhood" in early drafts) than in the reaction of the voice on the tape to their mother's passing. He stops listening to look up the word in a large dictionary. He returns to the tape. The voice starts to describe the revelation he experienced at the end of a pier. Krapp grows impatient and gets