TWO PLAYS:

Hughie
By
Eugene O’Neill
(Eugene O’Neill Bio)

Starring:
Joe Grifasi as Night Clerk
Brian Dennehy as Erie Smith
Director: Robert Falls

AND

Krapp’s Last Tape
By
Samuel Beckett
(Samuel Beckett Bio)

Starring:
Brian Dennehy as Krapp
Director: Jennifer Tarver

At
Goodman Theatre
(Goodman Theatre Website)
170 N. Dearborn
Chicago, Illinois 60601
312.443.3811

January 16 to February 28, 2010

Robert Falls: Artistic Director
Roche Schulfer: Executive Director
Set Design: Eugene Lee
Lighting Design: Robert Thomson
Production Stage Manager: Joseph Drummond
Costume Design: Patrick Clark
Sound Design: Richard Woodbury
Stage Manager: T. Paul Lynch
Publicity Director: Denise Schneider

Susan Weinrebe
January 25, 2010

It is a quarter to midnight of the soul in Goodman Theatre’s remarkable double bill of two one-act plays, Hughie and Krapp’s Last Tape. Brian Dennehy, in the prime of his powers as a stage character actor, consumes each of his roles as though it was the last of his life, and he intended them to be his final memorials.

Hughie is set in a shabby hotel, only a few tiers up from being a flop. Every furnishing in its lobby looks as though it’s down to its second to last thread. Light bulbs are burned out in the chandeliers, the rug has nearly melded into the floorboards, the shoe shine stand seems long unused, and even the night clerk, the estimable Joe Grifasi, appears utterly used up. That one can nearly smell the stale smoke and desperation of this place is a tribute to the brilliance of Eugene Lee’s set and Robert Thomson’s lighting design.

Enter the life force that is Brian Dennehy playing 59 year old gambler, rogue, survivor, Erie Smith. Wearing a suit that is second-cousin to mattress ticking, brown spectators and an attitude, Erie soon realizes how much he misses Hughie, the former clerk who recently died and was the perfect straight man and eager sponge for Erie’s tales about his big bets, dolls, and high living.

What follows between the taciturn clerk and the bombastic Smith is a subtle turning of the bolts that hold Erie’s self image in place. Grifasi’s micro-economy of gesture with which he plays his part, is riveting and in complete contrast to Smith. One man’s life orbit is tiny, the other lives large, but each finds his luck changed by their meeting.

As the curtain rises on Krapp’s Last Tape, a transformed Brian Dennehy sits at a table, lighted by a pinpoint spot. He is tiny, old, wizened and pinkish in the way very elderly people are. The light grows, breasting the ocean of blackness that surrounds him. He does not speak…for a stage eternity and the audience is utterly silent and tight, waiting.

As Krapp, Dennehy commands his audience completely. Dressed in black pants and vest, a white shirt and sneakers, his frothy white hair bubbling around his head, grizzled whiskers on his face, he looks both elfin and like a naughty baby. He does some stage business, fiddling with a key and the lock on his desk, shtick with a banana and peel, a massive door behind the desk that he opens and closes several times, turning on a light inside the room we don’t see, to glug some drink which we also don’t see. What we are able to watch is the string attached to the light bulb just inside the door. It arcs back and forth as we listen to Krapp imbibing. We are for all intents and purposes watching a silent movie.

At last, as Krapp fiddles with a reel to reel tape player we hear a voice! It is his from years gone by when he was 39, relating the tender details of being with a woman. Tantalizingly, he plays and rewinds the tape, stopping it just as something is about to be revealed. This old nugget of humanity has a secret he still holds to himself after all this time. We wonder as he repeats the actions of opening the door, listening to his young self, and stopping the tape, what happened in the intervening years to reduce him to the smallness of his dark, coffin-like room. The curtain falls with excruciating slowness until Krapp is seen no more.

Hughie and Krapp’s Last Tape are hauntingly poignant companion pieces, triumphs of acting and production even beyond the usual expectations for Goodman Theatre. For a look behind the scenes, the Goodman Theatre Website shares production information, interviews with the cast and directors and more.

Brian Dennehy as Erie Smith
in Goodman Theatre'"Hughie"
by Eugene O'Neill
Courtesy of Liz Lauren

---

Joe Grifasi as Night Clerk
Brian Dennehy as Erie Smith
in Goodman Theatre's "Hughie"
by Eugene O'Neill
Courtesy of Liz Lauren

---

Brian Dennehy as Krapp
in Goodman Theatre's "Krapp's Last Tape"
by Samuel Beckett
Courtesy of Liz Lauren

---

Brian Dennehy as Krapp
in Goodman Theatre's "Krapp's Last Tape"
by Samuel Beckett
Courtesy of Liz Lauren

---

For more information, contact Dr. Roberta E. Zlokower at zlokower@bestweb.net