Krapp's Last Tape: Introduction

 

Krapp's Last Tape is a play by Samuel Beckett. It deals with technology as a means of creating narrative and story, and reacting to history.

Krapp, an aging man (with a fondness for bananas), finds a tape, "box three, spool five", in which the voice of his younger self recounts details about his life at that time.

Krapp is dissatisfied with his younger self on listening: he feels he was pompous and had misaligned priorities — Krapp listens particularly to his younger self recounting his past loves (and perhaps sexual encounters, but this is not explicitly stated), especially with one woman, once on a barge.

Krapp finally records a reel in which he reflects on the experience of listening to his younger self – "Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago" – before wrenching it off the recorder.