Latest news with #Krapp'sLastTape
Hamilton Spectator
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Behind the Fringe curtain: Get creative, or die trying
When it comes to writing, there are only three rules: write, write, write. When it comes to writing a play for the Fringe Festival, the rules change exponentially: Write, direct, stage manage, produce, and do the tech if you're not actually on stage performing. Oh, and sell the hell out of your play. Hamilton's Brian Morton knows this. He's been doing it almost since the festival started in Hamilton 20-plus years ago. The first Hamilton Fringe play he ever did was a one-person show in 2006. At the time, Morton was a venue tech, but the Fringe organizers had no budget to pay crew, 'so they gave me a slot and I performed 'Krapp's Last Tape,'' a one-act, single-hander that Samuel Beckett wrote in 1957. Such one-person shows, Morton said, are the bread-and-butter of Fringe because they're easy to produce, 'but they're hard to market. It's so hard to distinguish yourself.' Megan Phillips and the team behind 'Cheese Pervert' takes the show to the mother church of Fringe festivals, to Edinburgh, in August. They're the bread-and-butter because a playwright/director/producer/publicist doesn't have to hire a crew to help. That helps moneywise since 100 per cent of the base ticket price of every show goes to the artists. It also means one person has to carry the load. Lisa Randall, of Toronto, figures she's up to the task. Randall comes to the Fringe this year in an almost roundabout way. She and a collaborator won a spot through the Fringe lottery — which plays get to be staged are selected by a Bingo ball machine. Later, her partner got a spot in the Toronto Fringe and Randall found herself with a Fringe spot and having to go solo. But not to worry: This is her seventh Fringe production, including Toronto and Vancouver. 'It was a good nudge,' Randall said, or a good kick in the pants to finally write 'Sister Sophia Kicks the Habit.' Randall had two aunts who were nuns. The surviving one is 98 and lives in the Mother House in a small Ontario city. 'I stopped practising Catholicism after my parents divorced, the way many people do. At the time of the divorce one of my mother's sisters told her she was going to go to hell.' That was more than enough for Randall to disengage from them and the church. But then she 'started to learn things about their lives — and they became so important to me, not as Catholics but as family members. I gained a deep compassion for them. The play is like a tribute.' Two other solo woman shows are in the works for this year's edition of the Fringe: 'Horseface,' featuring U.K.-born, Toronto-based artist Alex Dallas and directed by Clare Barry, herself a veteran of the Canadian Fringe tour; and 'Catching a Cheese Pervert,' co-written by Kayla Kurin and Krista Rowe (also the director) and starring Megan Phillips. For Dallas, it seems a lot of the hard work for 'Horseface' (the name comes from the Trump insult against Stormy Daniels) has been completed. The show premiered in Orlando in 2019 and has played in Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Victoria. 'Horseface' features U.K.-born, Toronto-based artist Alex Dallas. 'The show came about after #MeToo and the Weinstein trial. I became so enraged about what was being revealed about women's lives that I started to reflect on my own in relation to the way I have been treated by men — teachers, boyfriends, strangers — and I put that rage and comedy into a show.' The show's success and Donald Trump's 34 felony convictions are their own publicity. That 'Horseface' won Best in Show awards in Ottawa and Orlando helps. The Kurin-Phillips-Rowe collaboration also has its origin in the headlines. 'The show is (loosely and unfortunately) inspired by the bizarre real-life case of the 'Swiss Cheese Pervert,' a man who made headlines in Philadelphia in the early 2010s for his … dairy-centric public indecency,' Rowe said. 'We took that strange but true headline and ran it through a feminist glow-up of corporate greed, environmental collapse, and Canada's most ridiculously powerful interest group, the dairy lobby.' In their case, as well as with Dallas and Morton, collaboration seems to be the key to a successful production. Randall even found that as well as working solo was going, collaborating has kicked it up a notch. Randall had worked on 'Sister Sophia' for several years, 'monologue by monologue' (even writing three songs for it) before she showed some of them to another friend, Kate Johnston, an award-winning filmmaker. 'She asked questions I hadn't thought of,' which proved helpful in finding the arc of the story. As for Morton, he's been working with Hamilton musician Chris Cracknell for more than 20 years. 'It's usually his playing Robin to my Batman, but instead, this time, it's me as Robin to his Batman.' Their play has what can be described as a uniquely Fringe title: 'A Non-Canonical Musical Adventure with Pookamhura: Mistress of B-Roll.' It's based on a 12-episode YouTube series Cracknell created about the gaming world. The Fringe play is 'noncanonical,' meaning audience members don't have to be gamers or know the web series to follow the story line, which is about self-discovery, gender identity and the complexities of life. Also uniquely Fringe. The collaboration between Cracknell and his four actors, two of whom are transgender and new to the stage, is a 'creative act of faith, like jumping off a cliff and hoping it will come out OK,' Morton said. The team behind 'Cheese Pervert' takes the show to the mother church of Fringe festivals, to Edinburgh, in August. They, too, have worked together for some time, first connecting while filming a short comedy, 'Break Up Time Machine.' They quickly discovered a shared comedic sensibility rooted in absurdism, a mutual disdain for nepo babies, and a love/hate relationship with therapy, Rowe said. After the show's been written, cast and rehearsed, there's the small matter of publicity. Hamilton Festival Theatre Co., the Fringe's parent organization, has organized online meetings with producers to guide them in getting the word out. 'The Fringe's job is to get 200 people out to the Fringe every day. Your job is to convince those 200 people to catch your show at 4 o'clock,' Morton said. Yet, in the end, it still comes down to the work itself, what the playwright, director and actor leave on the stage. Everyone else is invited along for the ride. How uniquely Fringe.
The Star
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
Mano Maniam, revered Malaysian actor and theatre stalwart, dies at 79
Mano Maniam in a 2007 Kuala Lumpur production of 'Krapp's Last Tape' by Samuel Beckett. The distinguished Malaysian actor - a towering figure in theatre, television, and film - passed away last night. He was 79. Photo: The Star/Filepic Mano Maniam, the distinguished Malaysian actor, arts advocate, educator and cultural anthropologist – an extraordinary multi-hyphenate whose presence shaped the nation's performing arts landscape – died last night. He was 79. News of his passing has prompted tributes from PEN Malaysia, theatre contemporary Patrick Teoh, performing arts outfit theatrethreesixty, publisher/filmmaker Amir Muhammad and many others on social media. To the mainstream audience, Mano was best known as the affable 'Uncle Chan' from the beloved late-1990s, early 2000s television series Kopitiam – a role that brought him widespread recognition and endeared him to a new generation of viewers. The cast of the late 1990s TV series 'Kopitiam' (from left): Rashid Salleh, Mano Maniam, Lina Teoh and Douglas Lim. Photo: The Star/Filepic Born in Ipoh in 1945, Mano was a towering presence in the Malaysian performing arts scene for over five decades. His love for the stage began in childhood, enchanted by colourful bangsawan and sandiwara shows (Malay theatre road shows) in Ipoh. At ACS Ipoh in the early 1960s, he discovered Shakespeare – a passion that led him back to the school as a teacher, inspiring others as he once was. With a career that spanned theatre, television, film, education, and cultural discourse, he brought gravitas, warmth, and intellect to every role he inhabited. In 1996, 'Adorations' stood out as a significant local theatre work - an Odissi dance performance framed as a dialogue between guru (Mano Maniam, pic) and disciple (Ramli Ibrahim). Photo: Sutra Foundation Whether commanding the stage in Shakespearean leads or Beckett monologues, or appearing in international productions like Anna and the King and Netflix's Marco Polo , he brought a quiet intensity and presence that transcended language and genre. On the local front, Mano will be remembered for his roles in the cult film Mat Gelap (1990), the gritty big city drama Kolumpo (2013), and the acclaimed Barbarian Invasion (2021). His deep, resonant voice, commanding stage presence, and gentle wisdom made him not just a household name, but also a mentor to generations of theatre practitioners and students alike. Throughout his long career, Mano moved effortlessly between the intimate spaces of theatre and the global reach of screen. On local television, he was a familiar and grounding presence in both English and Tamil dramas, further cementing his role as a cultural bridge across communities. Even in his later years, Mano remained a tireless force in the arts. Well into his 70s, he lent his rich, resonant voice to narration work and found joy in teaching acting to senior citizens at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC), continuing to nurture creativity in others. Just last year, his voice brought poetic dimension to Meniti Cakerawala: The Science & Romance Of The Cosmos, a production that, fittingly, married science and wonder echoing the same balance of intellect and soul that defined his life's work.
Irish Examiner
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
'Wicked sense of humour': John Minihan on photographing Gary Oldman in Krapp's Last Tape
'There is no Memory in Beckett. Even Krapp's Last Tape has no memory in the usual sense of associated recall, but rather, a mechanical process set in motion by a jar or vibration: the closing of or opening of a door.' - William S Burroughs, The Adding Machine Samuel Beckett knew the essence of theatre is that an actor is present in the flesh on the stage in a way in which he is not on the screen. Academy award winner Gary Oldman returned to the UK stage after a 37-year hiatus in April of this year to perform Samuel Beckett's one-act play, Krapp's Last Tape, at the York Theatre Royal. For over 50 years I have been photographing Beckett plays: Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days and Krapp's Last Tape. All played with an array of actors from Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Billie Whitelaw, John Hurt, Michael Gambon, Max Wall, Pierre Chabert, Barry McGovern, Stephen Rea and Robert Wilson. They all bring their own exuberance to the roles they play. Trying to define Krapps Last Tape is like well trying to define the overall dramatic works of Samuel Beckett - it's complex yet simple, ever evolving and wildly addictive. Gary Oldman in Krapp's Last Tape. Picture: John Minihan When I heard last November that Oldman was doing Krapp's Last Tape, I knew that I wanted to see and photograph him. He's an actor with a wicked sense of humour. I knew he would bring something special to the part in a work that's Beckett's most approachable stage play and my favourite to photograph. Krapp is a sentimental 69-year-old listening to his 30-something voice on a spool from his archive, looking back regretfully upon a life lived in which he sacrificed love to artistic ambition. We see Krapp onstage in an old white collarless shirt, and black waistcoat in which he keeps his pocket-watch and a banana. I told Gary about the time I photographed Max Wall who played Krapp at the Riverside Studios in London in 1987, bringing his own brand of music-hall humour and relishing the word 'spool'. 'Spoool,' he crooned. I was in the dressing room with Max where he started eating the banana; staff were dispatched to get another banana before the show could start. Music-hall humour is strewn through the world of Samuel Beckett, and the plays often benefit in performance from a less reverent attitude than is usually the case. It's becoming harder to photograph plays in the West End of London. I was invited to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London in 2024 to see Waiting for Godot. The producers could not have been more helpful, but they had their own photographer doing the stills for newspaper publicity and reviews. Back in the day there was always a photo call for the main theatre photographers in London. I knew Douglas H Jeffrey, the doyen of theatre photographers who I first met when I was an apprentice in the Daily Mail darkroom in 1962. Douglas supplied Fleet Street's newspapers with beautiful black and white photographs of shows in the London's West End. He loved theatre, always wore a beret and an artist smock with pockets to hold film and lense. He was never interested in being interviewed about his work. I remember he photographed the playwright Joe Orton in 1967 only months before he was murdered in Islington by his partner Kenneth Halliwell. Gary Oldman played Orton in the film, Prick Up Your Ears, in 1987. My friend Adrian Dunbar, who has directed Beckett in Ireland, London and Paris, was in York for nearly a week supporting Gary in rehearsals of Krapp's Last Tape. I met Gary with Adrian, and the pair were happy, laughing and joking. They go back as actors to the early 1970s to the Royal Court in London and the RSC. Listening to them, it could have been a scene from Estragon and Vladimir in Waiting for Godot. John Minihan's image of John Hurt in Krapps Last Tape in 1998. I was also relishing the opportunity to go back to the beautiful city of York which hosted its first Beckett Festival in June 2011. I had an exhibition of my Beckett photographs at York University together with a range of world-class writers like the Nobel laureate JM Coetzee, who I photographed outside the door of York Minister. The event also featured a performance by the renowned Gare St Lazare players with Cork actor Conor Lovett performing his arresting adaptions of Samuel Beckett's short stories, First Love and The End. I loved being back in York with Adrian and meeting Gary and his photographer wife Giselle and their children. The show is dedicated to John Hurt and Michael Gambon. The production team even used the same recorder that those great actors used for their shows at Dublin's Gate Theatre. Samuel Beckett would, I believe, have given the nod to Gary Oldman who seemed to have found his perfect home. Dublin-born photographer John Minihan has been based in West Cork for many years. As well as capturing famous images of the likes of Princess Diana, Edna O'Brien, and Francis Bacon, he also took several photographs of Samuel Beckett Read More Barry Keoghan and Nicola Coughlan provide star power for Fastnet Film Festival in West Cork
The Guardian
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘An intuitive genius': Gary Oldman steps back on to stage as a national treasure
It's been 46 years since Gary Oldman made his professional stage debut at York's Theatre Royal. Returning to the venue last week for Samuel Beckett's one-man play Krapp's Last Tape, the 67-year-old English actor is a world removed from the young upstart once advised by Rada to do something else for a living. In the intervening four decades Oldman has steadily become one of the greatest actors of his generation, whose versatility and intense performance style have earned him numerous accolades including an Oscar, three Baftas and a Golden Globe. Today, he is one of the highest-grossing actors of all time (more than $11bn worldwide), and beloved by British audiences for his 'standout' performance as Jackson Lamb, the cantankerous manager of a team of defunct spooks in the Apple TV+ spy drama Slow Horses. It's no surprise that viewers are drawn to Lamb, whose appeal lies in his fallibility: he is rumpled, mildly corrupt and pessimistic, with a propensity to drink and swear. It's exactly the type of offbeat role Oldman has spent his career perfecting. 'Jackson Lamb's character arc is all in the backstory. He's not going to change or develop; we're looking at a burned-out wreck of a man,' Will Smith, the Emmy-winning creator and showrunner of Slow Horses, told the Guardian. 'Because Gary is such an extraordinary actor, he can convey that vast hinterland with the narrowing of his eyes or a shift in his posture. There's so much to reveal and explore with Lamb, but Gary is happy to have it simmering in the background and then give us the occasional tantalising glimpse into the darkness of his past. It's a wonder to behold.' Often hailed as a 'working-class hero' in an industry increasingly rife with Etonians and Harrovians, Oldman began his life in New Cross, south-east London, in 1958. His father, Leonard, was a welder and former sailor who left the family home and Gary's mother, Kathleen, when his son was seven. The teenage Oldman, a diehard Millwall fan, was initially drawn to music but gravitated towards a career in acting after seeing Malcolm McDowell on stage. He began studying with the Young People's theatre in Greenwich while working odd jobs as a porter and a shoe shop assistant. After failing to get into Rada, Oldman studied acting at the Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, before a run of work with York Theatre Royal, the Royal Court and the Royal Shakespeare Company. On screen, he made his film debut in 1982 in Colin Gregg's Remembrance, and the following year he landed a starring role as a skinhead in Mike Leigh's Meantime, before rising to prominence with his portrayal of Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986). Playing the Sex Pistols' bassist – a performance described by John Lydon as 'bloody good' – showcased Oldman's devotion to his characters (at one point he was taken to hospital after losing significant weight for the role) and led to other starring turns. He was the playwright Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987), a football firm leader in The Firm (1989), and the titular Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990). He became the unofficial frontman of the 'Brit pack', a fraternity of driven young British performers that included Colin Firth and Daniel Day-Lewis. In 1991 Oldman starred in his first US blockbuster, playing Lee Harvey Oswald in Oliver Stone's JFK. After that, the actor began to gain a reputation as Hollywood's 'psycho deluxe': he was the titular Count in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1992), the violent pimp Drexl Spivey in the Tony Scott-directed, Quentin Tarantino-written True Romance (1993), a sadistic prison warden in Murder in the First (1995), and a corporate tyrant in The Fifth Element (1997). Perhaps most memorably, he played a corrupt DEA officer in Luc Besson's Léon: The Professional (1994), widely considered as one of the best villains and most corrupt cops in cinema history. After a fallow period in the early 2000s, Oldman found himself back in the spotlight when he was cast in two major franchises. He was Harry Potter's godfather, Sirius Black, in the film adaptations of JK Rowling's books, and the police commissioner Jim Gordon in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy – a performance lauded by critics, who increasingly regarded Oldman as one of the greatest actors never to have been nominated for an Oscar. That Oscar nomination eventually did come, for Oldman's portrayal of the spy George Smiley in Tomas Alfredson's 2011 adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. But he didn't win the gong until 2018, for playing Winston Churchill in Joe Wright's Darkest Hour – a role the actor recently revealed he turned down 'half a dozen times' until his wife intervened. '[She] said: 'Go out there and walk on the wire. It could be great, but even if you fall and it's no good, you've got to stand on the set and say: We shall fight you on the beaches.' I thought: You've got a point there.' Oldman's transformation into the wartime prime minister required 200 hours in the makeup chair, 14 pounds of silicone rubber, and $20,000 worth of Cuban cigars, which gave him nicotine poisoning. Christopher Eccleston hailed Oldman's Oscar win as 'massive' for people from working-class backgrounds. 'Oldman is as fine an actor as Daniel Day-Lewis, but Gary is not double-barrelled,' he said. Oldman's third Oscar nomination was for an eponymous role in Mank (2020), David Fincher's paean to a past era of great American film-making. He has previously expressed how difficult he found it to work without disguise on the film. 'I do like to hide, but I'm hiding because it's all my baggage … so that was my problem,' he said. And there's been no shortage of personal baggage over the course of the actor's life. There was his difficult childhood, an experience he mined when writing and directing Nil By Mouth (1997), a bristling portrait of an abusive, alcoholic father in south London – which the film critic Nick James described as 'the most authentic working-class cockney movie ever'. There was his alcoholism in the 90s, when he was arrested for drunk-driving and checked into rehab (Oldman has been sober for more than 25 years). Then, in 2014, Oldman issued apologies for offending Jewish people after he played down antisemitic slurs by Mel Gibson. He has also had a string of marriages, including to the actors Lesley Manville (the mother of his eldest son Alfie) and Uma Thurman. He has faced down accusations that he was violent to his third wife, Donya Fiorentino (the mother of his younger sons, Gulliver and Charlie), which came out during the promotion of Darkest Hour. He has been married to the writer and art curator Gisele Schmidt since 2017. While Oldman has been in several recent films, including Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and Paolo Sorrentino's Parthenope – released in the UK on Friday – Slow Horses has solidified his status as a national treasure. 'Working with Gary was an education and inspiration,' Smith said. 'He is a truly transformational actor, a once-in-a-generation talent, an intuitive genius with an incredible work ethic and a disarmingly generous spirit. Every actor that joins the cast is in awe of him, but he makes them feel welcome and puts them at ease.' Much like the character of Krapp, Oldman is reconnecting with his past when he steps on to the stage each night, carrying 'the sense of an older man in conversation with his younger self' according to the Guardian's review. The actor has spoken of his desire to retire once Slow Horses ends, which would make his return to York all the more serendipitous. Towards the end of the play, Krapp questions whether his 'best years are gone', but it's clear that Gary Oldman's star is as bright as it ever was.
BBC News
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Gary Oldman's return to York Theatre Royal is 'special', staff say
Gary Oldman's return to the theatre where he made his professional debut is a "very generous decision" by the star, venue staff Oscar-winning actor is starring in Samuel Beckett's play, Krapp's Last Tape, at York Theatre Royal until 17 May, his first stage role since the late previously said staging the one-actor play, which he also directs, would be all the more poignant as it was "about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier".Vicky Biles, from the theatre, said it had been "very exciting" to welcome new audiences from around the world alongside regulars during the sell-out run. "We do hope that people coming to see it will look at other things that we have happening here and come back again," said Ms Biles, the theatre's communications and development started out at the venue in 1979 in plays like Privates on Parade and She Stoops to Conquer - as well as playing the cat in the pantomime Dick Whittington that for his long-awaited return started about 18 months ago, Ms Biles said, when Oldman visited the theatre and met chief executive Paul Crewes. "Gary spent about an hour on the main stage with his family, talking about his memories of working here in 1979," she said."That started the conversation with Paul about Gary's desire to return to theatre."Producing the play, which is not set to tour elsewhere in the UK, had been "thrilling" for the theatre, said Ms Biles."He hasn't done theatre for over 30 years and to choose to come back to where he started his career is very special," she said."It's a very generous decision on his part to continue to support this theatre and give us this wonderful production." The production has received several positive reviews, including the Guardian describing it as a "startling piece of theatre".The Times, however, said Oldman "could dig deeper", with the performance creating "mixed results"."It's very rare for York to be at the centre of focus of the theatre world," said York-based critic Charles Hutchinson."It's rare that the New York Times, for example, should send a reviewer to York to see anything at all, and they're there for Gary Oldman."Sting and Trudie Styler had visited to watch the production, he added, as well as Slow Horses writer Mick Heron. Mr Hutchinson said the opening to the production featured 67-year-old Oldman silently eating fruit."It is interesting when you watch something and it's silent other than someone eating a banana and how it makes an audience feel," the critic said. "Are they going to find it funny, do they have permission to give the first laugh?"He added: "He has absolute charisma on screen, but what's interesting here is he's playing a character who is downbeat and looking back on 30 years earlier."After his York debut, Oldman's glittering career has included playing Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films and winning a best actor Oscar in 2018 for his Winston Churchhill Hutchinson, 64, added: "People say to me, why didn't you go to work in London? The answer is because still so much goes on in the north. "I feel more special seeing something like this in York than going to London." Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
