It has often happened in the history of the theatre that some external changes
(such as the architectural organization of the theatre itself, the use of stage
machinery, lighting techniques and so forth), have favoured or actually brought
about important changes in dramatic art and impacted significantly on dramatic
theory. This has been the case of those recent technological discoveries which,
by opening up new and unexpected possibilities, have given rise, among other
things, to multimedial theatre.
Today I wish to explore the interaction between technological innovation
and the theatre in one of the most surprising - and most moving - dramatic
works of the twentieth century: Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape67.
The earliest version of Beckett's work can be seen in the unpublished 1954
text, Mime du Rêveur A. Dougald McMillan describes it as follows: "Beckett
had worked on a play which focused on a single character, portrayed in the
present through an extended pantomime which is seen in counterpoint to sounds
of wind and sighs and a second mime, a mimed dream of the dreamer and a
now-absent lover"68. Four years later this original plot was expanded through
the introduction of the tape-recorder: "In 1958 while working with director
Donald McWhinnie and actor Pat Magee on the BBC radio production of All
that Fall, Beckett had been involved
