Krapp's Last Tape

As Krapp meditates on his long-lost past, Cluchey manages to recreate in full Beckett's wicked wit.

- Jack Helbig, Chicago Reader

In 1957, a performance of Beckett's Waiting for Godot visited the San Quentin jail where Rick Cluchey was a prisoner. Cluchey, who was serving a life term, had not been "inside any theatre, not even to rob it". The following year, together with other inmates, he formed the San Quentin Drama Workshop which holds the honour of being the only company which had Beckett himself as mentor. In 1966, Cluchey was granted a pardon and left prison.

Some years later, Cluchey and Beckett two began a long professional relationship with a strong bond developing between them. It was also the year in which this version of Krapp's Last Tape, directed by Beckett himself, premiered in Berlin.

Cluchey brings to the stage a powerful portrait of a man alone at the end of his life, who is split between absurdity and philosophy, humour and cruelty, passion and pity as he confronts his tape-recorded memories.

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