By Fern Siegel (Posted 2/15/25)

Samuel Beckett is focused on consciousness — distilled to its essence. We live. We die. We wake. We sleep. And in his masterwork Waiting For Godot, we wait.

Called “theater of the absurd,” his plays are set in barren environments where characters are left to make sense of their existence.

Off-Broadway’s Irish Rep has selected three extreme examples, producing a triptych of minimalist one-acts under the umbrella Beckett Briefs: Not I, Play, and Krapp’s Last Tape, with the latter featuring F. Murray Abraham as Krapp.

Beckett fans will enjoy the theatrical challenge.

Not I is staged in a completely dark theater. Focused solely on a red lipsticked mouth, it’s viewable via a slit in a curtain. The mouth belongs to an older woman (Sarah Street), abandoned by her parents, who talks at a fast clip, almost a stream of consciousness, about her sad life. The effect is unnerving, yet weirdly captivating — her reflections and ruefulness are reduced to a mechanized sound.

Play is comprised of three heads (Roger Dominic Casey, Kate Forbes and Street) atop funeral urns. They are rapidly talking to us about a love triangle that has moments of humor, while showing the infinite capacity of humans to deceive themselves. Endings careen into beginnings as the monologues are delivered in a loop. No resolution, only the fragmented experiences of an affair.

The final, longest act, is Krapp’s Last Tape. And over the decades, it’s been played by Patrick Magee, Brian Dennehy and even Harold Pinter. Abraham appears as a disheveled man listening to audio recordings of his younger days and attempting to make new entries. Beckett, who admired Buster Keaton, has moments of silent comedy here: a banana peeled, then flung to the floor, a word that delights his protagonist.

But as he listens to his diary tapes, Krapp is saddened, bewildered and angry. What did his romantic life achieve? Does he recognize himself as he staggers toward the inevitable?

Ciarán O’Reilly directs a solid cast with precision — 75 minutes without intermission. The one-acts are ideal for the Irish Rep’s intimate space. Beckett was clear about his stage directions — and it’s a challenge for actors to make the roles, particularly Krapp’s, their own. And while despair — and confusion — is injected in all Beckett plays, there is, for brief moments, a sense of hope.

All three evoke Beckett’s famous quote: "You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.”