Landmark Productions
announces major 20th anniversary production of
Krapp’s Last Tape
by Samuel Beckett
starring Stephen Rea
directed by Vicky Featherstone
11 Jan - 3 Feb, 2024
Project Arts Centre, Dublin
Landmark Productions, one of Ireland’s leading theatre producers, announces details of its 20th anniversary production - Samuel Beckett’s quietly distilled masterpiece, Krapp’s Last Tape starring Stephen Rea. It will open at Project Arts Centre, Dublin 20 years to the day since the company’s first performance at the same venue (Skylight, on 17 January 2004). Tickets are now on sale for what promises to be a major theatrical event.
Stephen Rea’s long history with the work of Samuel Beckett includes working with Beckett himself when he played Clov in a production of Endgame at the Royal Court Theatre in London, at the age of 29.
Stephen Rea spoke of that first encounter with Samuel Beckett: ‘I was included in the cast of Endgame due to the premature death of the great Jack McGowran, who should have played Clov opposite Pat Magee. I joined the surviving team of extraordinary giants - Beckett, Magee and the director Donald McWhinnie - at the Royal Court for the celebration of Beckett’s seventieth birthday. I learned more in that few weeks than before or since, from all three men, but particularly of course from Sam.’
Directed by Vicky Featherstone, artistic director of the Royal Court for the past ten years, the stellar design team includes Jamie Vartan (set); Katie Davenport (costume); Paul Keogan (lighting); and Kevin Gleeson (sound).
Director Vicky Featherstone said, ‘It is a huge honour to be directing this formidable and exacting play by the father of all playwrights –Samuel Beckett. And for that to be part of landmark’s 20th anniversary season and to celebrate all the beautiful work that Anne Clarke has made over that time feels very special. Krapp’s Last Tape premiered at the Royal Court in 1958 – the theatre that I have been AD of for the past 10 years. Stephen Rea was directed by Beckett in our building. It is an utter privilege to be embarking on this adventure with the legend that is Stephen Rea. To watch Krapp stirring back to life as Stephen inhabits him is the experience of a lifetime. I can’t wait for us to share it with you all.’
Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited.
A man sits alone. It is the evening of his 69th birthday. Every year, on his birthday, he records a new tape - a review of the year just gone.
But first, he listens back to a tape he recorded three decades before.
Hard to believe I was ever that young whelp.
Recently Landmark announced an ambitious and wide-ranging programme of work to mark its 20th anniversary. It will be brought to the stage in partnership with an exceptional array of Irish writers, actors and co-producers. The first six months of 2024 (with programming for the latter half of the year to be announced at a later date) will see this new production of Krapp’s Last Tape, starring Stephen Rea; the world premiere of a dazzling new play by Marina Carr, Audrey, or Sorrow; and a public call-out for emerging playwrights to have their short plays produced as part of Theatre for One at Cork Midsummer Festival in June 2024.
Krapp’s Last Tape
Project Arts Centre, Dublin
11 January - 3 February 2024
Tickets now on sale https://www.landmarkproductions.ie/production/krapps-last-tape/
About Landmark Productions
Landmark Productions is one of Ireland’s leading theatre producers. It produces wide-ranging work in Ireland, and shares that work with international audiences.
Led by Anne Clarke since the company’s foundation, its productions have received multiple awards and have been seen in leading theatres in London, New York and beyond. Landmark produces a wide range of ambitious work – plays, operas and musicals – in theatres of all scales. It co-produces regularly with a number of partners, including, most significantly, Galway International Arts Festival and Irish National Opera. Its 30 world premieres include new plays by major Irish writers such as Enda Walsh, Mark O’Rowe and Deirdre Kinahan, featuring a roll-call of Ireland’s finest actors, directors and designers.
Numerous awards include the Judges’ Special Award at the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, in recognition of ‘sustained excellence in programming and for developing imaginative partnerships to bring quality theatre to the Irish and international stage’; and a Special Tribute Award for Anne Clarke, for her work as ‘a producer of world- class theatre in the independent sector in Ireland’.
https://www.landmarkproductions.ie/