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‘Till Day You Do Part—an answer to Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape? An echo, rather . . .’
Handke’s ‘echo’ of Krapp’s Last Tape is also a monologue—by the ‘she’ of Beckett’s play, the ‘unknown female’ recalling the centrality of women figures in many of Handke’s own works, for example The Left-handed Woman. The monologue is prefaced by a description of two stone figures. While the male figure remains ‘as dead and gone as anyone can,’ the female bursts into life and her monologue gradually focuses on Krapp’s use of language—and pauses—to dominate others: ‘you were always the first person . . . you were incapable of a duologue’ Ultimately, however, it becomes a kind of declaration of love, or at least attachment, to Krapp as the two of them are ultimately ‘inseparable’ and at the end the male figure starts to become like her—’or is that merely a question of the light?’ As Becket did with many of his works, Handke wrote the first version of his monologue in French; that text is included in this edition.
ISBN - 9781906497736
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Pages : 92
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