It's a clowning achievement for the legendary Max Gillies
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Krapp makes a recording on his birthday every year and, on the eve of turning 70, he chooses the tape from the year he was 39. The poignant symbolism in recording one’s past – then re-living it by listening – surely resonates with everyone. All of life is laid bare – death, love, sex, family, writing – all added to life’s ledger and ultimately, says Gillies, form a study in futility.
“When you read and perform it, the pain is palpable but you’re not laughing at other people’s pain. He is recognising his own pain, like classic, unsentimental clowning. When Beckett opens the play with the banana peel, he’s signalling the attitude he wants to bring to the character. Any suffering this character is going to do should be read from the distance you have when you see someone else falling on a banana skin.
Gillies admires Samuel Beckett’s brilliant word play.Credit:Jason South
“There’s a recognition that would be painful if that happened to you, but it’s funny to watch. It’s hard to make sense of all of this, except that I always responded to the great cinema clowns. For me Chaplin was the great performing artist of the 20th century.”
The stoicism amid the slapstick of silent movie figures clearly influenced Beckett who went on to make a short film with Buster Keaton. Beckett’s plays had cracked open the 1950s, challenging conventional theatre and earning him a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.
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