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Hughie & Krapp’s Last Tape
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Geffen Playhouse
Through December 16
RECOMMENDED
In Hughie & Krapp’s Last Tape, by Eugene O’Neill and Samuel Beckett respectively, Brian Dennehy portrays solitary men struggling to come to terms with the desolation in their lives. Both plays are directed by Steven Robman at the Geffen Playhouse.
Written in 1942 but set in 1928, Hughie, with its period jargon and its main character’s sneering contempt for women, registers as somewhat anachronous and offensive, despite the intriguing psychological aspects of this central figure. Krapp’s Last Tape, Beckett’s one-person one-act, comes with fewer societal trappings. It’s the stronger, truer work, and a far superior vehicle for this 80-year-old Dennehy, a two-time Tony Award–winner for Death of a Salesman (1999) and Long Day’s Journey into Night (2003).
In the O’Neill play, Dennehy plays Erie Smith, a two-bit gambler who’s spent his life at racetracks and dice tables, and likes to paint himself as a hard partyer, who brooks no nonsense from what he perceives as whining, controlling women. Till recently Erie had nurtured a relationship with Hughie, the night clerk at the seedy hotel where he resides. A boastful man, Erie loved to parade his break-the-rules lifestyle before the modest, married Hughie, whom he deemed a “sucker” — but who provided an indispensable audience for his own frothing ego. Now Hughie has died, and Erie is compelled to relay the history of their relationship to Hughie’s indifferent replacement (Joe Grifasi), whose attention keeps drifting even as Erie grows more insistent in demanding it.
Krapp’s Last Tape is a portrait of a churlish recluse who, each year on his birthday, tape records his reflections and feelings. The play takes place on his 69thbirthday, when, for whatever reason, he’s chosen to revisit the tape he made when he was 39. It’s essentially a dialogue between an aging embittered alcoholic and his younger self who, although already angry and cynical, holds on to a modicum of hope, manifest in a romantic encounter with a woman in a boat.
Before the dialogue begins, however, slapstick stuff happens (this is Beckett, after all), as the clownish unkempt birthday boy puzzles over a cluster of keys, fastidiously peels a couple of bananas and tosses the peels on the floor (then carefully steps around them) and squints through failing eyes as he struggles to thread the tape on the reel-to-reel tape recorder. From the top, Dennehy’s rendering is the work of a crackerjack craftsman, in a performance that runs the gamut from outrageous to poignant.
Hughie comes across a bit differently. Here, Dennehy depicts a narcissistic blowhard mourning a friendship dearer to him than he’s prepared to admit. While Krapp curls inward, Erie is a flamboyant trumpeter: his capacity for self-delusion is prodigious (which is the aspect of the work that keeps it timely). Dennehy displays the same level of professional skill in both roles, but physically he’s a better fit for the elderly Krapp, and the play correspondingly lands with more of a punch.
Sibyl Wickersheimer has constructed an artful frame for each play — for Hughie the faded lobby of a hotel that has seen better days (the decorative bannister on the staircase is an arresting touch). In Krapp’s Last Tape, the character’s dingy den is impeccably underscored by designer Daniel Ionazzi’s pale yellow lighting. And sound by Cricket S. Myers — the unmistakable cork-popping and guzzling that goes on off-stage as Krapp seeks solace for his pathetic life — highlights the tragi-comical elements of Beckett’s work.
Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood; Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 p.m. & 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through Dec. 16. (310) 208-5454 or https://geffenplayhouse.org/. Approximately one hour and 50 minutes with one 15-minute intermission.
