I can’t go on, I’ll go on
Page 36
VLADIMIR:
Tell him . . . (he hesitates) . . . tell him you saw me and that . . . (he hesitates) . . . that you saw me. (Pause. Vladimir advances, the Boy recoils. Vladimir halts, the Boy halts. With sudden violence.) You’re sure you saw me, you won’t come and tell me to-morrow that you never saw me! Silence. Vladimir makes a sudden spring forward, the Boy avoids him and exit running. Silence. The sun sets, the moon rises. As in Act 1. Vladimir stands motionless and bowed. Estragon wakes, takes off his boots, gets up with one in each hand and goes and puts them down center front, then goes towards Vladimir.
ESTRAGON:
What’s wrong with you?
VLADIMIR:
Nothing.
ESTRAGON:
I’m going.
VLADIMIR:
So am I.
ESTRAGON:
Was I long asleep?
VLADIMIR:
I don’t know.
Silence.
ESTRAGON:
Where shall we go?
VLADIMIR:
Not far.
ESTRAGON:
Oh yes, let’s go far away from here.
VLADIMIR:
We can’t
ESTRAGON:
Why not?
VLADIMIR:
We have to come back to-morrow.
ESTRAGON:
What for?
VLADIMIR:
To wait for Godot.
ESTRAGON:
Ah! (Silence) He didn’t come?
VLADIMIR:
No.
ESTRAGON:
And now it’s too late.
VLADIMIR:
Yes, now it’s night
ESTRAGON:
And if we dropped him? (Pause.) If we dropped him?
VLADIMIR:
He’d punish us. (Silence. He looks at the tree.) Everything’s dead but the tree.
ESTRAGON:
(looking at the tree). What is it?
VLADIMIR:
It’s the tree.
ESTRAGON:
Yes, but what kind?
VLADIMIR:
I don’t know. A willow.
Estragon draws Vladimir towards the tree. They stand motionless before it. Silence.
ESTRAGON:
Why don’t we hang ourselves?
VLADIMIR:
With what?
ESTRAGON:
You haven’t got a bit of rope?
VLADIMIR:
No.
ESTRAGON:
Then we can’t.
Silence.
VLADIMIR:
Let’s go.
ESTRAGON:
Wait, there’s my belt.
VLADIMIR:
It’s too short.
ESTRAGON:
You could hang on to my legs.
VLADIMIR:
And who’d hang on to mine?
ESTRAGON:
True.
VLADIMIR:
Show all the same. (Estragon loosens the cord that holds up his trousers which, much too big for him, fall about his ankles. They look at the cord.) It might do at a pinch. But is it strong enough?
ESTRAGON:
We’ll soon see. Here.
They each take an end of the cord and pull. It breaks. They almost fall.
VLADIMIR:
Not worth a curse.
Silence.
ESTRAGON:
You say we have to come back to-morrow?
VLADIMIR:
Yes.
ESTRAGON:
Then we can bring a good bit of rope.
VLADIMIR:
Yes.
Silence.
ESTRAGON:
Didi.
VLADIMIR:
Yes.
ESTRAGON:
I can’t go on like this.
VLADIMIR:
That’s what you think.
ESTRAGON:
If we parted? That might be better for us.
VLADIMIR:
We’ll hang ourselves to-morrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes.
ESTRAGON:
And if he comes?
VLADIMIR:
We’ll be saved.
Vladimir takes off his hat (Lucky’s), peers inside it, feels about inside it, shakes it, knocks on the crown, puts it on again.
ESTRAGON:
Well? Shall we go?
VLADIMIR:
Pull on your trousers.
ESTRAGON:
What?
VLADIMIR:
Pull on your trousers.
ESTRAGON:
You want me to pull off my trousers?
VLADIMIR:
Pull ON your trousers.
ESTRAGON:
(realizing his trousers are down). True. He pulls up his trousers.
VLADIMIR:
Well? Shall we go?
ESTRAGON:
Yes, let’s go. They do not move.
Curtain
Krapp’s Last Tape
In many ways, Krapp is a typical Beckett character: part music-hall clown, part bawd; part tender, part cynic. But unlike so many of Beckett’s other characters, mythological figures in the projection of his inner landscape, Krapp lives and breathes and has his being in a reasonably recognizable world. If the clown aspect is pointed (“Rusty black narrow trousers .... White face. Purple nose.”), the setting is Krapp’s den, with a table and drawers, locks and keys, ledgers . . . and a tape recorder.
Ever since his early essay on Proust, Beckett was always obsessed with “that double-headed monster of damnation and salvation—Time—and its necessary corollary, Memory.” When the tape recorder became an available reality in the 1950s, one has to assume that it intrigued and tempted Beckett—not for its worldly ramifications of business and pleasure, but for the new light it cast on the Proustian equation: henceforth one need not steep a madeleine in an infusion of tea to evoke “time past”; one has at one’s elbow the means wherewith to evoke it at the press of a button. Memory, which Beckett termed, in that same monograph, “a clinical laboratory stocked with poison and remedy, stimulant and sedative,” can be called forth at will.
Krapp, at age sixty-nine—the scatological impulse in Beckett was, happily, always strong—listens to a tape made thirty years earlier, on his thirty-ninth birthday. In that tape the thirty-nine-year-old Krapp comments on a tape made “ten or twelve years” earlier. Each tape, that is, each age, reveals the person Krapp was; the continuity (addiction to bananas, despite the ensuing constipation; addiction to alcohol; addiction to sex) as well as the disjunction, for here as in the three short stories, as in the Trilogy, there are three—the young Krapp, the man of middle years (“Hard to believe I was ever that young whelp!” intones the latter of the former), and Krapp present, “a wearish old man.”
Krapp’s Last Tape was written in 1958 and, like All That Fall in English. Its earlier title, probably a working one, was “The Magee Monologue,” for the impulse behind the work was a radio broadcast Beckett heard of the actor Patrick Magee reading a selection of his prose works. On October 28 of that year, Krapp’s Last Tape had its première at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Directed by Donald McWhin-nie, it starred, quite fittingly, Patrick Magee.
Krapp’s last Tape
A play in one act
A late evening in the future.
Krapp’s den.
Front centre a small table, the two drawers
of which open towards audience.
Sitting at the table, facing front, i.e. across
from the drawers, a wearish old man:
Krapp.
Rusty black narrow trousers too short for
him. Rusty black sleeveless waistcoat,
four capacious pockets. Heavy silver watch
and chain. Grimy white shirt open at neck,
no collar. Surprising pair of dirty white
boots, size ten at least, very narrow and
pointed.
White face. Purple nose. Disordered grey
hair. Unsha
ven.
Very nearsighted (but unspectacled).
Hard of hearing.
Cracked voice. Distinctive intonation.
Laborious walk.
On the table a tape-recorder with
microphone and a number of cardboard
boxes containing reels of recorded tapes.
Table and immediately adjacent area in
strong white light. Rest of stage in
darkness.
Krapp remains a moment motionless,
heaves a great sigh, looks at his watch,
fumbles in his pockets, takes out an
envelope, puts it back, fumbles, takes out
a small bunch of keys, raises it to his eyes,
chooses a key, gets up and moves to front
of table. He stoops, unlocks first drawer,
peers into it, feels about inside it, takes out
a reel of tape, peers at it, puts it back, locks
drawer, unlocks second drawer, peers into
it, feels about inside it, takes out a large
banana, peers at it, locks drawer, puts keys
back in his pocket. He turns, advances to
edge of stage, halts, strokes banana, peels
it, drops skin at his feet, puts end of banana
in his mouth and remains motionless,
staring vacuously before him. Finally he
bites off the end, turns aside and begins
pacing to and fro at edge of stage, in the
light, i.e. not more than four or five paces
either way, meditatively eating banana.
He treads on skin, slips, nearly falls,
recovers himself, stoops and peers at skin
and finally pushes it, still stooping, with his
foot over the edge of stage into pit. He
resumes his pacing, finishes banana,
returns to table, sits down, remains a
moment motionless, heaves a great sigh,
takes keys from his pockets, raises them to
his eyes, chooses key, gets up and moves
to front of table, unlocks second drawer,
takes out a second large banana, peers at
it, locks drawer, puts back keys in his
pocket, turns, advances to edge of stage,
halts, strokes banana, peels it, tosses skin
into pit, puts end of banana in his mouth
and remains motionless, staring vacuously
before him. Finally he has an idea, puts
banana in his waistcoat pocket, the end
emerging, and goes with all the speed he
can muster backstage into darkness. Ten
seconds. Loud pop of cork. Fifteen
seconds. He comes back into light carrying
an old ledger and sits down at table. He
lays ledger on table, wipes his mouth,
wipes his hands on the front of his
waistcoat, brings them smartly together
and rubs them.
KRAPP
(briskly). Ah! (He bends over ledger, turns the pages, finds the entry he wants, reads.) Box ... thrree ... spool... five. (He raises his head and stares front. With relish.) Spool! (Pause.) Spooool! (Happy smile. Pause. He bends over table, starts peering and poking at the boxes.) Box ... thrree . .. thrree ... four ... two ... (with surprise) nine! good God! . .. seven .. . ah! the little rascal! (He takes up box, peers at it.) Box thrree. (He lays it on table, opens it and peers at spools inside.) Spool... (he peers at ledger) ... five ... (he peers at spools)... five .. .five ... ah! the little scoundrel! (He takes out a spool, peers at it.) Spool five. (He lays it on table, closes box three, puts it back with the others, takes up the spool.) Box thrree, spool five. (He bends over the machine, looks up. With relish.) Spooool! (Happy smile. He bends, loads spool on machine, rubs his hands.) Ah! (He peers at ledger, reads entry at foot of page.) Mother at rest at last... Hm ... The blackball... (He raises his head, stares blankly front. Puzzled.) Black ball? ... (He peers again at ledger, reads.) The dark nurse ... (He raises his head, broods, peers again at ledger, reads.) Slight improvement in bowel condition ... Hm ... Memorable ... what? (He peers closer.) Equinox, memorable equinox. (He raises his head, stares blankly front. Puzzled.) Memorable equinox? ... (Pause. He shrugs his shoulders, peers again at ledger, reads.) Farewell to—(he turns the page)—love.
He raises his head, broods, bends over machine, switches on and assumes listening posture, i.e. leaning forward, elbows on table, hand cupping ear towards machine, face front.
TAPE
(strong voice, rather pompous, clearly Krapp’s at a much earlier time.) Thirty-nine today, sound as a—(Settling himself more comfortably he knocks one of the boxes off the table, curses, switches off, sweeps boxes and ledger violently to the ground, winds tape back to beginning, switches on, resumes posture.) Thirty-nine today, sound as a bell, apart from my old weakness, and intellectually I have now every reason to suspect at the ... (hesitates) ... crest of the wave—or thereabouts. Celebrated the awful occasion, as in recent years, quietly at the Winehouse. Not a soul. Sat before the fire with closed eyes, separating the grain from the husks. Jotted down a few notes, on the back of an envelope. Good to be back in my den, in my old rags. Have just eaten I regret to say three bananas and only with difficulty refrained from a fourth. Fatal things for a man with my condition. (Vehemently.) Cut ‘em out! (Pause.) The new light above my table is a great improvement. With all this darkness round me I feel less alone. (Pause.) In a way. (Pause.) I love to get up and move about in it, then back here to ... (hesitates) ... me. (Pause.) Krapp.
Pause.
The grain, now what I wonder do I mean by that, I mean ... (hesitates)... I suppose I mean those things worth having when all the dust has—when all my dust has settled. I close my eyes and try and imagine them.
Pause. Krapp closes his eyes briefly.
Extraordinary silence this evening, I strain my ears and do not hear a sound. Old Miss McGlome always sings at this hour. But not tonight. Songs of her girlhood, she says. Hard to think of her as a girl. Wonderful woman though. Connaught, I fancy. (Pause.) Shall I sing when I am her age, if I ever am? No. (Pause.) Did I sing as a boy? No. (Pause.) Did I ever sing? No.
Pause.
Just been listening to an old year, passages at random. I did not check in the book, but it must be at least ten or twelve years ago. At that time I think I was still living on and off with Bianca in Kedar Street. Well out of that, Jesus yes! Hopeless business. (Pause.) Not much about her, apart from a tribute to her eyes. Very warm. I suddenly saw them again. (Pause.) Incomparable! (Pause.) Ah well... (Pause.) These old P.M.s are gruesome, but I often find them— (Krapp switches off, broods, switches on)—a help before embarking on a new ... (hesitates) ... retrospect. Hard to believe I was ever that young whelp. The voice! Jesus! And the aspirations! (Brief laugh in which Krapp joins.) And the resolutions! (Brief laugh in which Krapp joins.) To drink less, in particular. (Brief laugh of Krapp alone.) Statistics. Seventeen hundred hours, out of the preceding eight thousand odd, consumed on licensed premises alone. More than 20%, say 40% of his waking life. (Pause.) Plans for a less ... (hesitates)... engrossing sexual life. Last illness of his father. Flagging pursuit of happiness.
Unattainable laxation. Sneers at what he calls his youth and thanks to God that it’s over. (Pause.) False ring there. (Pause.) Shadows of the opus ... magnum. Closing with a—(brief laugh)— yelp to Providence. (Prolonged laugh in which Krapp joins.) What remains of all that misery? A girl in a shabby green coat, on a railway-station platform? No?
Pause.
When I look—
Krapp switches off, broods, looks at his watch, gets up, goes backstage into darkness. Ten seconds. Pop of cork. Ten seconds. Second cork. Ten seconds. Third cork. Ten seconds. Brief burst of quavering song.
KRAPP
(sings). Now the day is over, Night is drawing nigh-igh, Shadows—
Fit of coughing. He comes back
into light, sits down, wipes his mouth, switches on, resumes his listening posture.
TAPE
—back on the year that is gone, with what I hope is perhaps a glint of the old eye to come, there is of course the house on the canal where mother lay a-dying, in the late autumn, after her long viduity (Krapp gives a start), and the—
(Krapp switches off, winds back tape a little, bends his ear closer to machine, switches on)—a-dying, after her long viduity, and the—Krapp switches off, raises his head, stares blankly before him. His lips move in the syllables of “viduity.” No sound. He gets up, goes backstage into darkness, comes back with an enormous dictionary, lays it on table, sits down and looks up the word.
KRAPP
(reading from dictionary). State—or condition of being—or remaining—a widow —or widower. (Looks up. Puzzled.) Being —or remaining? ... (Pause. He peers again at dictionary. Reading.) “Deep weeds of viduity” ... Also of an animal, especially a bird ... the vidua or weaver-bird ... Black plumage of male ... (He looks up. With relish.) The vidua-bird!