Skip to primary content

Tape | Mar 22 2002

Krapp at his tape recorder

At Paul and Julie’s anniversary party, a video was played of their wedding. People stood around the television and watched themselves wishing Paul and Julie a happy marriage, one year earlier. When Annie appeared on screen, the tape was paused so that Julie could run outside and get Annie, who evidently did something funny at this point.

Nobody said anything while Julie was gone, and then Julie returned with Annie and the tape was started again. On the screen Annie took a long drag of an imaginary cigarette and said, “We’ve come a long way, baby, but we don’t know where the fuck we’re going.” That got a big laugh, although I sensed that most people had heard it already, either because they were there when she said it, or more likely because they’d seen the video before.

It struck me then that this wasn’t just the anniversary of Paul and Julie’s wedding, but of their wedding video, and I thought that someone should have been making a video of this party as well, to be played at next year’s party, and so on.

In Beckett’s play, Krapp’s Last Tape, an old man listens to snippets from recordings he’s made on his birthday at various times in his life. In each recording he mentions the same pathetic story, except that the story changes over time—or doesn’t change exactly, but falls apart. In the end, disgusted with what he’s heard, Krapp records a new tape…

Ah, I just found the text online! This isn’t what happens at all!