THE ANN ARBOR NEWS • WEDNESDAY. MARCH 6. 1985

Ironies abound as Network readies more Beckett

By CHRISTOPHER POTTER

NEWS ARTS WRITER

“Did you fix it?” queries Performance Network’s David Hunsberger of fellow toiler David Bernstein, who’s laboring furiously to breathe sense into a senile reel-to-reel tape recorder.

“No, we didn't fix it," snaps actor Bernstein from the next room. “It doesn’t turn all the time. It won’t go the right speed."

Director Hunsberger sighs. A healthy machine is a prerequisite for the Network’s imminent production of Samuel Beckett's “Krapp’s Last Tape.” the showcase work in an evening titled “Four by Beckett,” which opens Thursday.

“We’ve got this old Sony back there,” laments Hunsberger. “It must weigh 80 pounds. We borrowed another one that’s even older, but it doesn’t seem to work, either. The first machine will only go fast forward or fast reverse. The second one will only go slow."

Wails Bernstein from the other room: "Boy, does this thing work bad! I mean this is crazy! I’m just goin’ nuts here!”

Smiles Hunsberger ruefully: “Well, we might be doing ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’ Thursday night - and then again, we might not.”

The theatrical irony of this breakdown isn't lost on Hunsberger, whose stagings of Beckett, both popular and opaque, have become a Network tradition over the past few years. “Two of the plays we’re doing deal with predicaments with machines, especially ‘Krapp.’ When David (Bernstein, who plays Beckett's title character) first started working with the tape recorder, he discovered some of the experiments you have to make with the tape recorder are kind of inherent in the character. ”

Thus art wackily imitates life in “Krapp’s Last Tape,” the most accessible and most disturbing offering in “Four by Beckett." which also includes “Act Without Words II.” the recent “What Where” and the rarely seen

DAVID BERNSTEIN
. . in his role as Krapp

“Breath.” “Krapp’s” single character is also a mechanical klutz - an elderly ragamuffin who fumbles with an ancient tape recorder, trying to listen to a tape of his own voice recorded 30 years earlier. As the old man listens disdainfully, the voice of the 39-year-old Krapp expresses his disdain over a recording by a youthful Krapp perhaps a dozen years earlier.

Beckett’s time-warp triplicate is an immortal feat of dramatic deep-focus. “One of the intriguing things about Krapp,” says Hunsberger, “is that he can completely refresh his memory about something that took place 30 years ago. There it is, it’s absolute, it can’t be distorted. Our own memories get distorted by all sorts of things - sentimentality, whatever. That’s one of the truths in ‘Krapp.’ You can see what an ass you were then, or even now."

The play’s haunting tableau of simultaneous virility and decline carries almost universal applicability to anyone approaching the dread age of 40. It’s an unsettling vision, admits Hunsberger, 37: “It’s pretty scary to project. When I think of myself 10 years ago, I think of myself as pretty ridiculous. I hope I don’t think I was ridiculous now when I'm 30 years older."

Though "Krapp” provides the evening’s cornerstone, “Four by Beckett’s" three other offerings reflect the playwright at his enigmatic best. “Play Without Words II” offers two characters - one lethargic and mournful, the other a manic bundle of energy - who go through wildly contrasting warmups in order to undertake an identical, ultra-menial daily task.

The nightmarish “What Where" gives us “four characters on stage, plus the voice of the main character projected from a loudspeaker. ‘The main character interrogates the other characters one at a time, gets rid of all of them one by one. Yet this booming voice controls him, even though it’s his own voice. It really determines how the play goes."

Of “Breath,” Hunsberger waxes deliberately cryptic. “There’s no people, only a pile of junk on the stage, a taped voice, and taped sound effects. I won’t tell you what happens, that'll be more fun,” he grins.

Hunsberger admits he considers "Breath” and most of Beckett’s works from the late '60s and early ’70s to be “theatrical exercises.” ("Beckett keeps removing things from the stage. He’s simplifying all the time.") Such works often prove less than audience pleasers: “We’re all conditioned to a mode of accessibility. I think there’s something ingrained in our culture that makes characters like Godot and Krapp more appealing. There's a human dynamic in them."

Still, “this show will provide you with a genuine cross-section to choose from - if we can find a tape recorder."

'Four by Beckett' will be presented at Performance Network. 408 W. Washington St., Thursday through Sunday and March 14-17. Curtain is 8 p.m.,

Thursday through Saturday, and 6:30 p.m. on Sunday. For ticket information, call 663-0681.