These two short plays, Hughie and Krapp’s Last Tape, are studies in human isolation and desperation, which is undoubtedly why The Geffen has linked them in a home-grown production directed by the gifted Steven Robman. Starring in both of these one-acters is Brian Dennehy, an actor who has appeared in numerous plays by the respective playwrights, Eugene O’Neill and Samuel Beckett In Hughie, Dennehy takes on the role of Erie Smith, a small-time gambler and hustler living in a seedy Manhattan hotel circa 1928. Smith has just come off a four-day bender but he’s still full of the blarney as he confronts the (unnamed) night clerk (Joe Grifasi, alternating with Armin Shimerman). Smith regales him with boastful tales of his past conquests and escapades, but it soon becomes evident that he is a man at the end of his tether. A lifetime of near-misses and bitter disappointments have left their mark on him. Smith is further undone when he learns—at three a.m., O’Neill’s witching hour—that his best and only friend, Hughie, has been permanently replaced as night clerk by this slightly creepy stranger. Even though he is devastated by the news, Smith fights frantically to hide his true feelings behind a mask of jokiness and optimism. Dennehy handles O’Neill’s dramatic monologue (the night clerk rarely speaks) in confident, skilled fashion. He does his best to breathe life into this 50-minute play, but without much luck. Hughie’s lack of urgency, story and conflict undermined Dennehy’s valiant efforts and made it difficult for me to sit through the play. I wasn’t bored by Krapp’s Last Tape, but neither was I deeply moved by it. Having seen it at least half a dozen times may explain my alienation from it. Or maybe it is Dennehy’s fault. He is believable as the old man looking back, with the help of his reel-to-reel tape recorder, on his failed life. Dennehy does sadness and anger well, but he doesn’t have great clowning skills. And since Krapp is as much a vaudeville turn as a serious play, it left me wanting. Beckett knows how to dramatize stasis and create his own special, grotesque, and yet heart-breaking world. He’s done all of that and more in Krapp, and while I’m not sorry I saw the play, I left the theater thinking that I never wanted to see it again.
