Second Time Around

In one of my blogs I discussed the importance of reading novels more than once. The same thing applies to plays. To everything really. First time I watched "Krapp's Last Tape", I focused on the character's behavior only. But it is quite apparent that when something keeps reappearing, be it a particular word in a text, and image in a movie, or a line in a play, it's because it has a specific, important role in the piece. The "box three, spool five... spoool!", appeared constantly. To grasp its entire meaning, I went back to the beginning.

The "box three, spool five" refers to the tape Krapp listens to in the play. He seems to pay special attention to this particular box and spool. Krapp takes a paper from the box and reads. It seems to be a describing the contents of the tape. "Memorable equinox?" The man says, as if trying to remember what it referred to. "Farewell to... love." He must turn the page to read the word "love" ( McWhinnie places emphasis in "love" by having Magee turn the page), and when he does, silence. The look in his face, the expression of his eyes as he recalls this memory, so melancholic. Here we have, standing before us, an old, uneasy, weary, lonely man. Lonely. Around him, nothing. An empty room. No pictures, no furniture, no rugs. Only a table, a tape recorder, a microphone, some boxes and a lamp above. "Farewell to love", farewell to happiness. Greetings, loneliness.

This box and spool are important because they contain the key to Krapp's past and the explanation to the lonely life we watch him live. Every time Krapp mentions the word "spool", his face lightens up. Krapp's life consists on listening to old recordings. They are all he has, and all he ever does (besides eating bananas).

"What's a year now? The sour cud and the iron stool. (Pause.) Revelled in the word spool. (With relish.) Spooool! Happiest moment of the past half million."

"Box three, spool five... spoool!" If we looked the word up in Krapp's dictionary, it would read: my happiness, my companion, my whole life.