Krapp’s Last Tape” and “Victoria Station” staged on the third day

Samuel Beckett's “Krapp's Last Tape” and Harold Pinter's “Victoria Station”, were staged on the third day (August 13) of the ongoing theatre festival by the Department of Theatre, Dhaka University. The weeklong festival, titled “Creative Youths' Theatre Expressions”, is being held at the Natmandal of DU. The festival features 15 plays directed by as many students of the final year.
Mohsina Akter directed “Krapp's Last Tape”, a one-act play that Beckett had written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee. The play projects the protagonist Krapp reminiscing on his life on his 69th birthday. The curtain rises on a late evening; as has become a custom, Krapp pulls out his old tape recorder on his birthday and reviews one of the earlier years by playing it. He started to record the previous years' events at the age of 39.
The play belongs to the genre 'minimalist monodrama'. Md. Mehedi Tanjeer played the protagonist with appropriate expressions and costume. Beckett has been extremely wary of over stressing the clownish elements in Krapp's physique, dress and behaviour.
The set designing was minimal, as it only featured a table in front of the stage, where Krapp was seated on a chair. Only one light was on the stage, just above where Krapp seated. The light never went off during the approximately half-an-hour long play. The rest of the stage remained in darkness. Bithika Yasmin and Swapna Rani did the set and light designing.
“Victoria Station” narrates a radio dialogue between a cab Controller and a Driver (number 274) who is stopped by the side of a dark park. The Controller attempts to instruct the Driver to pick up a client from Victoria Station, but the driver declines to move, suddenly obsessed with his current client, who is apparently
unmoving in the back seat.
The Controller's mood shifts through various degrees of mystification towards irritation and then possibly compassion, masking some more immoral intentions of what to do with this Driver.
Sharmin Sultana Munmun has directed the play, based on a translation by Lucky Inam. Naved Rahman and Saiful Kamal Nahian respectively performed as the Controller and the Driver. Lasting for half-an-hour, the play's tone was mostly comic, as the Controller becomes more and more frantic at the Driver's defiance.
The stage direction lights up only on the Controller sitting at microphone and on the Driver in his car. Nazia Benzir, Atiqul Islam and Naved Rahman did the set, light, costume designing and planned music for the play.