Media Contact—Bryan Markovitz, 503 890 2993, bryan@liminalgroup.org
Liminal performs work by Samuel Beckett this summer with Krapp’s Last Tape
Portland, Ore.—From July 24 to August 9 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, Liminal Performance Group will present late night performances of Samuel Beckett’s classic one-act play Krapp’s Last Tape. Performances will start at 10:30 PM nightly. Ticket prices are $6-$15 (pay what you wish).
First performed in 1958, Krapp’s Last Tape signaled a new era for avant-garde performance and changed the face of modern theatre with its repetitive literary structure, vaudevillian imagery and stark postmodern perspective. Following on the heels of Beckett’s most famous play, Waiting for Godot, Krapp’s Last Tape marked a move in Beckett’s work toward the autobiographical. The play combines painfully hilarious comedy with delightfully gut-wrenching tragedy to reveal past and present moments from one man’s life. As a character, Krapp becomes the ultra-retro-modern Everyman who sometimes plays the clown slipping on a banana peel, and at other times plays the tragic hero battling his inmost dreams and fears.
Krapp’s Last Tape will be performed at Liminal Space in Old Town, and will feature Liminal sound and media designer John Berendzen in a rare performing role as Krapp, with direction from Liminal movement director Amanda Boekelheide.
“Liminal’s interest in incorporating live sound and media into our performances made us particularly interested in Krapp’s Last Tape,” says Berendzen, “Krapp’s is one of the first 20th century theatrical works to incorporate recorded media as an essential part of its structure.” Beckett masterfully unfolds his story through a dialogue between live actor and machine, where a single character depends on a reel-to-reel tape recorder to re-live his past. Together, Krapp and the audience experience his life for the first time through Beckett’s elaborate layering of live and recorded dialogue.
An installation at Liminal Space by painter David Hayes will feature portraits of Samuel Beckett, as well as paintings inspired by his writings.
Krapp’s Last Tape
July 24-August 9, 2003, Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 10:30 PM
Liminal Space, 403 NW Fifth at Flanders
Reservations: 503 890 2993, www.liminalgroup.org
Tickets $6-$15 (pay what you wish)
Liminal (1997-) is a Portland-based ensemble of artists producing performance and media works. Liminal has produced ten original performances, and recently received five Drammy awards for its 2002 and 2003 productions of The Seven Deadly Sins and Three Plays Five Lives. This summer, Liminal will begin work on a new project based on the themes of Faust that will premiere in September 2003.
###
