{"id":424123,"date":"2026-05-12T16:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/424123\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T16:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:05:09","slug":"matching-gary-oldmans-krapp-with-a-teenagers-take-on-godot-is-a-masterstroke-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/424123\/","title":{"rendered":"Matching Gary Oldman\u2019s Krapp with a teenager\u2019s take on Godot is a masterstroke | Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where does the time go? It\u2019s a year since Gary Oldman performed Krapp\u2019s Last Tape<\/a> in York, returning him to the Theatre Royal where at the age of 21 he played a sleepy panto cat<\/a>. Now, Samuel Beckett\u2019s play has a homecoming of its own. Oldman has brought the production \u2013 directed and designed by himself \u2013 to London\u2019s Royal Court, where Krapp had its premiere in 1958, starring Patrick Magee. The Court is also where Oldman cut is teeth in the 80s. \u201cI find it difficult to fully grasp, but four decades have passed,\u201d he writes in the programme.<\/p>\n

The sentiment is fitting: Krapp\u2019s Last Tape is indeed an old man\u2019s play. Beckett was 52 when it was first staged and Krapp is 69. He \u201cheaves great sighs\u201d as he shuffles around his den, reeling in the years through diary recordings made 30 years earlier, in which he reflects on his behaviour further back, in his late 20s. But for this Royal Court run, Krapp is accompanied by a teenage voice. The evening begins with a short new work by 19-year-old Leo Simpe-Asante, a winner of the theatre\u2019s inaugural Young Playwrights award<\/a>. It\u2019s an audacious and generous bit of programming that signals huge confidence in the newcomer, should serve to inspire other first-time playwrights and retains the theatre\u2019s mission to produce new writing while reviving a classic. It\u2019s also a reminder that Krapp itself was originally a curtain-raiser \u2013 the main event in 1958 was Beckett\u2019s Endgame.<\/p>\n

Trying to make the best of things \u2026 Shakeel Haakim in Godot\u2019s To Do List. Photograph: Camilla Greenwell<\/p>\n

Simpe-Asante spoofs an earlier Beckett with his play, wittily entitled Godot\u2019s To-Do List, performed against the detritus of Krapp\u2019s den. Waiting for Godot\u2019s backdrop is a country road and a tree; Simpe-Asante\u2019s script specifies a stool and a potted plant, which here resembles a child\u2019s fiendish buzz wire game. The play, punctuated by similar metallic pings, introduces us \u2013 at long last! \u2013 to Godot, a young man trying to make the best of things, who completes (some of) a series of tasks that range from \u201cdo the splits\u201d to \u201cpiss yourself\u201d to \u201cwork through your relationship with your father\u201d.<\/p>\n

It endlessly riffs on Beckett\u2019s play \u2013 even the title inverts Estragon\u2019s famous opening cry of defeat: \u201cNothing to be done.\u201d This young Godot\u2019s comical activities are akin to Vladimir\u2019s \u2013 both conceal carrots, write rhymes and shake their hats in a similar manner \u2013 and like Estragon, he has unfinished business (shades of Beckett\u2019s brothel joke without a punchline) and ends up with his trousers round his ankles.<\/p>\n

In the title role of Aneesha Srinivasan\u2019s lively production, Shakeel Haakim is dressed as if for a job interview \u2013 you sense the top button done too tightly, in a deft physical performance that stresses the nervous discomfort of trying to fit in. The tasks come as commands from an omnipotent To-Do List (spoken by the unseen Flora Ashton), creating a Krapp-like interplay between Godot and the voice. Is it Godot\u2019s own, heard in his head? Certainly, Simpe-Asante evokes the inner critic through the play\u2019s series of micro-decisions stemming from social anxiety and encroaching existential dread.<\/p>\n

Leo Simpe-Asante and Aneesha Srinivasan at the Royal Court. Photograph: Dave Benett\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

At times the voice seems to imply an authoritarian state but it remains pleasingly difficult to pin down \u2013 adopting the dulcet tones of a mindfulness app or even cheekily giving young Godot the horn (that bowler hat is bashfully moved to cover his groin). The two performers\u2019 voices overlap in scenes of spiralling despair, and the play reaches for a similar effect to Rebecca Watson\u2019s masterful Little Scratch<\/a> in addressing the minutiae of the current moment alongside long-term, unresolved turmoil. Unresolved being the key word: Simpe-Asante laughingly considers, yet crucially does so with compassion, the sense that any of us could ever wield any kind of control in this world. It shows, at one point quite literally, a futile search to be in sync with your surroundings.<\/p>\n

The writer is studying musical theatre at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (one of his projects is a sort of classical jukebox musical about children at an orchestra camp modelled after famous composers). He mimics Beckett\u2019s impish humour and musicality when Godot attempts a limerick and riffs on the playwright\u2019s name to create a character: \u201cBeckett? Nah. Beck? Bick? Bock? Boq? Quock? Sam Quock? Sam Cock \u2013 no, no, that\u2019s definitely not it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Beckett, Simpe-Asante considers a sense of emptiness and overload at once, so it makes sense artistically \u2013 not just practically \u2013 to bring Godot\u2019s solitary stool and pot plant briefly into Krapp\u2019s cluttered abode. That scene looks even more, now, like the dank habitat of Oldman\u2019s Slough House HQ in Slow Horses. The actor wearily climbs his way into this attic space, peering at a pocket watch, wincing and chomping down the first of Krapp\u2019s beloved bananas. In his programme note, Oldman reflects on recently celebrating his 68th birthday and how he can\u2019t believe he\u2019s one year shy of Krapp\u2019s age. Theatregoers may have a similar reaction. In my teens, Oldman was one of my favourite actors \u2013 revelling in Quentin Tarantino\u2019s dialogue in True Romance, cackling through a satanic cameo in a Guns N\u2019 Roses video<\/a> and pulling off that<\/a> hairdo in Dracula. His Premiere magazine cover (with love note to Tim Roth on his arm<\/a>) was on my bedroom wall.<\/p>\n

\u2018Spooool!\u2019 \u2026 Gary Oldman as Krapp. Photograph: Jack English<\/p>\n

And here he is, back on stage with greying whiskers, and in much closer quarters than York Theatre<\/a> Royal. It\u2019s a play that always benefits from a smaller theatre but Oldman\u2019s performance has deepened, too, since I saw it last year. The right lightness is there, from the slight smile that greets the unpeeling of the second banana to his dumbfounded chuckle greeting the word \u201cspool\u201d, but there is fury, too, when he throws the contents of his desk to the floor, a flash of anger at (and from?) his past.<\/p>\n

Krapp\u2019s Last Tape is such a peculiar challenge for an actor. There is something about seeing it again, in the home of new writing, that reveals its experimentalism. This is a play set in the future that sifts desperately through the past; a performance where the star has delivered the bulk of the dialogue (for the audio recording) before even getting on stage; a conversation of sorts between one character at different ages.<\/p>\n

Krapp chastises himself, as does Simpe-Asante\u2019s Godot. But Oldman nails how he also eternally kids himself, even while boastfully detecting a \u201cfalse ring\u201d in his own voice: \u201cWith all this darkness round me I feel less alone,\u201d he says, wavering as he adds: \u201cIn a way.\u201d Oldman\u2019s countenance is of a man poleaxed by images rearing up from his past and Beckett\u2019s descriptions make time stand still: the funereal sight of the \u201cbig black hooded perambulator\u201d, the feel of the dog\u2019s \u201csmall, old, black, hard, solid rubber ball\u201d, the woman with transfixing eyes like \u201cchrysolite!\u201d \u2013 the same sort of spellbinding gaze that the great Krapps have cast on audiences.<\/p>\n

The young Godot is run ragged by his never-ending to-do list; Krapp fills the empty days with the tapes listed in his old ledger. Godot assures us he has places to go; Krapp\u2019s land could be as uninhabited \u2013 almost apocalyptically \u2013 as it seemed to him 30 years earlier.<\/p>\n

Oldman\u2019s direction delicately captures a sense of nightfall, with the dying moments of Malcolm Rippeth\u2019s lighting design creating a terrible pathos. Krapp\u2019s defining memory \u2013 this evening, at least \u2013 is of lying with a young woman on a punt, their romance wrecked: \u201cWe lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us.\u201d A stillness concealing tumult is exactly what Oldman\u2019s expression captures as the machine whirs almost like lapping water, and he picks over what is left behind in life when the tide goes out.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if I could have dealt with watching a whole Endgame after Oldman\u2019s painstaking performance. This new pairing works wonderfully but its three-week run swiftly sold out. Might I suggest a task for the top of the Court\u2019s to-do list? Film it now<\/a> so Oldman can join the ranks of the great Krapps on camera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Where does the time go? It\u2019s a year since Gary Oldman performed Krapp\u2019s Last Tape in York, returning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-424123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}