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Hughie by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Robert Falls

Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett, directed by Jennifer Tarver

Stratford Festival, Studio Theatre, Stratford

June 28-August 31, 2008

"What remains of all that misery?"

A fine double-bill starring famed American actor Brian Dennehy is playing at Stratford’s Studio Theatre.  The two plays “Hughie” by Eugene O’Neill and “Krapp’s Last Tape” by Samuel Beckett are superficially quite different.  The O’Neill play written in 1942 is in the American realist tradition with a realist set and trappings.  “Krapp” is in the European absurdist tradition and is presented with a minimal set and trappings.  Both have the theme of a man looking back on his life.  In “Hughie” the speaker has a listener on stage.  In “Krapp” the man is alone, the listener of a recording of his own younger self.  Both, coincidentally, were first performed in 1958--”Hughie” in Stockholm, “Krapp” in London.

In “Hughie”, set in 1928, we meet Erie Smith (Dennehy), aged 59 (revised upwards from 45 in the script), who claims to be a professional gambler but in reality seems to be an errand boy for mobsters who takes the risk of gambling with the money entrusted to him.  He returns at 4:00 am after days of heavy drinking to the run-down hotel where for 23 years he has always stayed when in New York.  Primary in his thoughts is the death three weeks earlier of Hughie, the hotel’s longtime night clerk.  This and much else he tells Hughie’s taciturn replacement Charlie (Joe Grifasi).  Erie views Charlie, just as he first did Hughie, as a “sap”, a guy who has followed the norms of society, held a steady job, got married and has children.  Erie at first tries to impress Charlie with his flashy lifestyle, free of all ties, having sex with any chorus girl he chooses and absolutely carefree about money.  He’s always been lucky he says, except lately ever since Hughie was taken to hospital.  It gradually emerges over the the play’s 45 minutes that Erie’s aggressive nonchalance is just a façade.  He’s lost money and will be in big trouble with his bosses.  But worse, Hughie’s death has reminded him of his own mortality and the emptiness of his life.  The glad-handing Erie, in fact, had no real friends except for Hughie, who used to soak up all the bombast Erie gave him about his life and thus made Erie feel important.  Erie would clearly like to mould Charlie into another Hughie, but he finds the task difficult. 

Dennehy gives a great performance.  In his white linen suit and fedora he is a man who still imagines himself young and dapper despite physical evidence to the contrary.  Dennehy’s real power shows in the various moments when Erie loses the energy to keep his mask in place, when he lashes out at the decrepitude of the hotel or the unresponsiveness of Charlie when in fact they simply remind him he is putting on an act.  Joe Grifasi is wonderful as Charlie, pretty much as comically stone-faced as Buster Keaton, gradually changing from disdain of the drunken, self-important Erie to an interest in him as a character.  If there is a flaw with the production it lies with Robert Falls’s direction.  The action does not flow smoothly.  Several times it seems to come to a dead stop and you wonder how the actors will get the momentum going again. 

After intermission designer Patrick Clark’s worn carpet and furniture and elaborate hotel reception desk have been removed and replaced with a simple table and chair against an all-black background.  Krapp (Dennehy), aged 69, looking ancient and disheveled, completely different from the slick Erie, is discovered sitting at the table in a pool of light rapt in thought with only a slight, occasional twist of his lips hinting at disgust.  Director Jennifer Tarver allows this portrait of stasis to last so long that viewers unfamiliar with the play might begin to fear that nothing more will happen.  Finally, Krapp looks at his watch, fumbles with his keys and unlocks the two drawers of his table until he finds his treat, a banana.  After enjoying this and, given Beckett’s love of clowns, the inevitable slip on the banana peel, Krapp searches for “box 3, spool 5” among the tin boxes piled on the table.  This turns out to be a tape he made thirty years ago, his habit being to record his reflections every year on his birthday. 

The rest of the action consists of Krapp listening to the voice of his younger self and commenting through grunts or laughter on what he hears, stopping and starting the tape, fast-forwarding and replaying certain sections.  That year on spool 5, Krapp’s mother died and he felt he was finally riding on the “crest of a wave” ready for his life’s great work, glad to have said farewell to love.  Krapp scorns all this and fast-forwards through his younger self’s boasting.  What he replays is the moment when he was lying in a boat with a woman with whom he had just broken up allowing himself to feel the motion of the boat on the water.  For his present birthday Krapp tries to record something but finds he has nothing to say and relistens to his early self describe again floating on the river.

Dennehy again gives a masterful performance, his face flitting from boredom to reverie to disgust.  Tarver doesn’t seem to find as much humour in the piece as there is. There is no sense, for example, of Krapp’s sensual enjoyment of the banana and she doesn’t emphasize that Krapp becomes increasingly inebriated after each of his trips to a back room where he uncorks another drink.  In general, I found Graham Cozzubbo’s direction of the play starring John Neville for World Stage in 2000 more involving.  Tarver has Dennehy simply stare emotionlessly into the distance at the end whereas Cozzubbo had Neville seem to realize with infinite sadness that in breaking with the woman on the boat he had failed to seize his one great chance for personal happiness. 

Despite this, this is a well-conceived double-bill that brings two unusual plays into fascinating dialogue.  It is also a superb showcase for Brian Dennehy, who shows he can be riveting in completely contrasting roles whether as an outgoing talker or a withdrawn listener.  If you long to see a great actor prove his mettle in two challenging roles, you need look no further.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Brian Dennehy as Krapp. ©David Hou.