Unspooling from the Center: Krapp´s Last Tape and Post-Dictatorship Argentina

• Autores: Nudler, Alicia Clara
• Año de publicación: 2022
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: documento de conferencia
• Materia: Humanidades; Krapp´s Last Tape; Post-dictatorship theater; Argentina; Archives; Grupo Krapp; Luis Biasotto; Humanidades
• Institución: Universidad Nacional de Río Negro

Fil: Nudler, Alicia Clara. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Río Negro, Argentina.
Paper presentado en el Samuel Beckett Working Group en la Conferencia Anual de la International Federation of Theater Research en Reykjavic, Islandia, junio 2022.
This paper will address Beckett´s 1958 play Krapp´s Last Tape, seeing it in the context of post-dictatorship theatre in Argentina. Critics discuss the significance of the long period in theatre following the end of the last dictatorship (1976-1983), up to the present. In wider terms this period is marked by the redefinition of the country as it struggles with the consequences of violent and oppressive right-wing rule. Argentinian theatre has worked in many different ways to process this historic horror, and to deal with the past in terms both of memory and absence. Critic Dubatti states that in this country the dead dwell in the consciousness of post-dictatorship spectators, and theatre and other artistic forms take it as their task to invoke them. In this work, I will look at specific stagings of Beckett´s Krapp´s Last Tape (1986, 2000 and 2016) in Argentina under this light. I argue that various themes in the play serve as powerful metaphors for the social, political and judicial processes taking place in the country in relation to the years of the state repression. These include the vital role of archives -like the archive of memories Krapp keeps- in negotiating presence and absence, marking the mutability of identity and the long-term effects of trauma, mourning and loss. Delving deeper into Argentinian theatre, I will refer to a performance company, formed in 1998, that named itself after Beckett´s character, Grupo Krapp. Looking at this group as a resonance of Krapp´s Last Tape, I will refer to three of their productions: Adonde van los muertos (Lado A) (Where deadmen go, Side A); Retrocedida Krapp (Reversing/Rewinding Krapp) and finally Réquiem: La última cinta del grupo Krapp (Requiem: The last tape of the group Krapp). This last production, premiered in October 2021, is a homage to one of the directors of the group who died from Covid-19, and takes several elements from Beckett´s play. My examination of the impact and continuing unspooling of Krapp’s Last Tape in Argentinian theatre allows me to bring together three conditions or awarenesses that function simultaneously today in this country: Krapp /post-Krapp; Argentina pre/post dictatorship; analogue/digital recording. The continuing relevance and contemporaneity of Beckett’s short play and its subsequent creative derivations are linked directly to the social memory of Argentinian audiences.