THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
By Samuel Beckett / By Leo Simpe-Asante
Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, London SW1 until May 30, 2026
This production began in York Theatre Royal a year ago and marked Gary Oldman's return to the British stage after his last appearance at the Royal Court in Serious Money in 1987.
Of course, he's perfect for the part and gives us his own inimitable take on it. This time the old curmudgeon is more chilled and there are echoes indeed of his great Jackson Lamb from the hit TV series Slow Horses.
Krapp is a banana munching wreck, alone and hunched over a tape recorder listening to his recorded memories. Samuel Beckett was fascinated by the invention of the then-novel reel-to-reel tape and its dramatic potential. Here, the old man ascends to his murky loft (Oldman also designed the perfectly detailed mound of clutter he must shuffle through) to retrieve old tapes from various tins and replay them. It's all very OCD with each tape carefully labeled and noted in a ledger.
It's a perfect dramatic device, of course, to explore memory. Krapp is scathing about the pomposity and confidence of his younger self and Oldman relishes this. The whole thing is an aural treat, like a great radio play, every phrase is savored and every nuance is explored by him. Oldman also directs the piece with great assurance and Malcolm Rippeth's lighting design is exquisite for a piece where the mood is everything.
We learn that Krapp once knew happiness, recalling an afternoon when he made love to a girl in a punt, and Oldman brings a great poignancy to this tentative revelation but, unlike previous actors in the role you believe him when he says those great lines: "Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now." There is still spirit there.
The piece is about 40 minutes, and the Royal Court has made the inspired decision to pair it with a c. 20 minute piece of new writing from a very promising 19 year old writer. Leo Simpe-Asante's play – performed on the same set – is at times almost a loving pastiche of Beckett. It imagines Godot as a young man trying to make the best of things, echoing Estragon's sigh of "Nothing to be done." Here, the young man appears enslaved to the omnipotent commands from a sort of AI boss, your worst Siri nightmare or mindfulness app, spoken off stage by Fiona Ashton. The voice commands him to do a series of tasks and wittily sometimes assumes he's completed them and battles on. The tasks, banal at first, escalate to asking him to harm himself. Lots of food for thought here.
Shakeel Haakim as Godot is wonderfully engaging and has the comic finesse and impish humor of a great vaudevillian, which of course chimes with Beckett's love of comics and physical comedians. It may be short but it's a magnificent role.
Simpe-Asante considers with both compassion and a deft comedic skill whether any of us yield any control anymore, in this modern world where we allow ourselves to be run ragged by technology. It's no polemic, it's more a vaudeville riff, and all the better for that.
