A Kind of Alaska / Krapp's Last Tape

By Harold Pinter / Samuel Beckett

Studio
Previews 5, 6, 7, 9 Apr
7.30pm except 10 & 11 Apr at 7pm
Matinees at 2.30pm on Thursdays and Saturdays from 12 Apr, plus Tue 24 Apr and Tue 8 May

£20 / £16
£10 previews and Mondays (9, 16, 23 Apr only)

Signed performance: 14 Apr, 2.30pm
Audio described performance: 5 May, 2.30pm

There will be post-show discussions on 18, 25 Apr and 2, 9 May (see below for guests)

Directed by Simon Godwin
Designed by Mike Britton

Two plays by two giants of 20th century theatre

This spring, we invite you to witness a major theatrical event.

Two short plays by Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter in a rare pairing that brings together two of the most influential writers of the twentieth century.

After his triumphant productions of Faith Healer and Far Away, Bristol Old Vic and Royal Court Associate Director Simon Godwin will direct Pinter's A Kind of Alaska and Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape; plays that explore memory, healing and the sensation of time.

Deborah wakes after 29 comatose years to a reality she cannot accept, relationships she does not remember and a body she no longer knows. In this brief awakening, she begins to understand that she has spent the prime of her life like this, trapped within a waking sleep.

On his birthday, a sixty-nine year old Krapp listens to a recording of his younger self. But, after a life of failure, withdrawal and physical decline, the youthful idealism that confronts him makes the passing of time even more acute.

Two great plays that open compelling and tender dialogues between past and present.

Join us for an evening of sublime mystery

‘The writing is blessed with delicate precision. 'The Telegraph on A Kind of Alaska

‘Samuel Beckett's merciless, miniature masterpiece. 'The Guardian on Krapp's Last Tape

There will be post-show discussions on 18, 25 Apr and 2, 9 May with guests including Harold Pinter's widow, Lady Antonia Fraser, senior lecturer in Beckett Studies at Reading University, Ulrika Maude, University of Bristol's Professor of Performance, Simon Jones, and Dr Richard Wharton who set up a trust for Encephalitis Lethargica - the illness that Deborah in A Kind of Alaska suffers from.