Technology and Beckett’s Play, Krapp’s Last Tape

“The Last Book in the Universe” is about how a story of a life can be a book of memories and the author is trying to relate this to people today. In this world, people don’t remember anything but there is a boy named Spaz who can remember what happened. The “gummy”- an old man named Ryter -- is writing about a book to those who live in the future to help them know about what happened in the past. When the old man dies, he must use Spaz as “the Last Book in the Universe” because now there are no actual books that people can read. The author is trying to say that people today don’t read books as much or remember their history and that means that memory is more important than

The events from the past matter because they have already occurred and some will likely repeat in the future. The past is a group of mistakes and successes that someone can learn about and learn from so that they do not make the same mistakes:, instead, they create more successes. The literary devices that the author used in this novel are symbolism, imagery, and allegory. In Jack Gantos’s narrative Dead End in Norvelt, he uses the theme of remembering history to demonstrate that past mistakes should be learned from, and therefore, avoided;. Yet, also allowing people to grow and improve their overall human nature.

In the play “Tape” we are introduced with an unspecified person and unknown attendant. From the start of it all, there seems to be a bit of tension, but we don’t know exactly why. This is all fine but if the play had gone on longer, the readers would’ve had a chance to become more absorbed in the meaning, thus being able to relate. We find out somewhere

In this novel, Ender goes through a four-part narrative process which are exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution. The exposition explains the world around him, the rising action shows the start of a conflict, the climax shows how the climax develops and shows its worst, and the resolution solves the conflict introduced. Ender develops through this novel from the exposition to the resolution about his potential for

The front porch of the house where he grew up now became his solitude. Krebs withdrew into his own world, always reading or reminiscing about the enactments’ he was involved with in Germany. Krebs world revolved around his memories, “he had been a good soldier” (187). He struggled mentally to overcome his past life in the military and the haunting of society not welcoming him back, or so he thought. Krebs fought in his own mind the releasing of his enlistment world and that of the present world. The internal fight becomes the foil in this story: two worlds fighting each other in his

Jukebox musicals began in film and later shifted to theatre. They had begun to make theatre more popular with the public, which had begun to gravitate towards film and music. By combining the two, they gain some of the same as well as a whole new audience. I will discuss how this came to be by speaking of the shift that occurred.

Years after civilization collapsed, the world became more localized and much smaller. One major challenge of the new world involved whether to keep the old world as memory or to forget it all and live on as if there was no old world. Some people attempt to reminisce the memories of the world pre-collapse. One survivor, Clark, the head of the Museum of Civilization, holds a collection of items from the pre-apocalyptic world such as iPhones and computers which served as memory to those who remembered living in the old world. A group of musicians and actors, named The Traveling Symphony, place it upon themselves to revive the arts of music and acting because they needed to salvage what remained of humanity. Kirsten, an actress of the Symphony, does not choose to try to remember her early childhood in the old world. Kirsten says in an interview that “the people who struggle the most are the people who remember the old world clearly” (Mandel 195). She means that the “more you remember, the more you’ve lost.” Kirsten has almost no memory of her past life, not even her family, which, in the new world, could prove to serve her well. When survivors remember the deadly past, they see their family, who are most likely gone, and they find it hard to live a ruined life alone. Survivors without family or memories of their family would not suffer greatly from

In a sense, he demonstrates how “survivor’s syndrome” affects the survivor, Vladek, who is unable to shake the past in habit or thought, and a son of the survivor, Artie, who attempts to cope with his father’s reality.

I attended UCLA’s May 11th production of Carousel on a Wednesday night at the Freud Playhouse. Jeremy Mann and Dan Belzer directed the production. The musical opened on April 19th, 1945 (Hauser). Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the book and lyrics, while Richard Rodgers wrote the music in collaboration. In this paper I will expound on the history of Carousel’s writers, it’s historical significance in the world of American theater, as well as the plot of the play and it’s implications on the evolution of theater history.

With the appearance of Waiting for Godot at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris in 1953, the literary world was shaken by the arrival of a drama so different yet so thrilling that it gave rise to the "Theater of the Absurd". His contribution to this particular type of theater movement allows us to refer to him as the father of the genre. While other dramatists, such as Tom Stoppard, have also contributed to this genre, Beckett remains its single, most lofty figure. It is this type of theater that deals with the absurd aspects of life, to stress upon its native meaninglessness. It is the time and identity of characters that are usually vague or ambiguous in such plays from the theater of absurd. The plays are dreamy and impossible to

It is these types of plays that can be either intriguing or make you fall asleep by the perplexing storyline. Endgame by Samuel Beckett was directed by Christopher Scott at Baruch’s own, Mason Hall, during the last week of April. Therefore, I had no high hopes for this play since it was free and being read on stage by the actors. It is was my second time in Mason Hall, I find that the architecture is quite simple, yet the ceiling and the border of the stage has an interesting pattern. It has a proscenium stage where the audience sits in the balcony or the orchestra. I sat in the orchestra, it was alright until I began to get bored, which made my seat uncomfortable. I cannot blame the actors or the director for the confusion, besides myself. Then again, simply more time to rehearse or a better director could make it easier to understand. I can tell you one thing: Endgame stays true to the original story. It is being read on stage by the actors, how can it not be? The desire to understand is what kept me intrigued and what made me give up too. However, the message is clear at the end, but only after putting

When everything changed in this world, people come after Ryter and blame him for the change. Spaz tries to save him but the mob kills him and destroys a page which he is writing. Before he dies, he tells Spaz that Spaz is “the Last Book in the Universe” because now there are no actual books that people can read and know nothing about the world where they live.Falling in the pain of lost Ryter, he renamed himself Ryter, he decides to become a writer. As a writer, he continuing an finished book of the old man, which is the book that we read. Believe in Ryter’ suggestion: “Things will be better in the morning”. Spaz writes down everything that happened to him, about his journey to change the world, and whatever he speaks to help those people in

The voice warns viewers against re-living the past. The voice approaches it by prodding the audience into internal thought, hoping one can be a new hope and follow a new guidance on a better path. “Those of us who pretend to believe that all this happened only once, at a certain time and in a certain place… those who do not know history are destined to repeat the past (Furman, 2005).” Because this film is released only ten years after the war, it reminds the audience that they are hope for the future. It emphasises that while no one will forget, no one shall dare go through the trauma again.

Seeing something played out and reading a play is two different experiences and carry with them different interpretations. While reading, the reader tends to create a private view of what the author is writing in the story. Although, there was a “dazzling light” in Beckett’s play, some people may have created a yellow light, or maybe a

Krapp also remains motionless for most of the play. The only actions that do take place are of him eating a banana in the very beginning and the loading of the three tapes that Krapp focuses on in the dialogue. This imagery of him loading the tapes and sitting at his table depicts