“Hughie” and “Krapp’s Last Tape”
Goodman Theatre
Watching Brian Dennehy, still as handsome, graceful and light on his feet at 71 as at 51, I have to ask myself in disbelief, has it really been twenty years since I last saw him perform on the Goodman stage in “The Iceman Cometh”? It seems just like yesterday. The great thing about an actor’s actor like Dennehy, is the way he can utilize all the knowledge he has acquired during his long and illustrious career and still bring a freshness, a youthfulness, an energy and presence that is uniquely his own to every role.
Both one act plays, “Hughie” by Eugene O’Neill and “Krapp’s Last Tape” by Samuel Beckett center on themes of late life crisis. Both men reminisce nostalgically about love lost and life turned empty as the last curtain falls. Both characters are deeply mired in a painful existential loneliness as they recall women that they disdained earlier in life, either as gold diggers and tramps or romantic fantasies passed up in the rush of youth that will never come again.
In “Hughie” as a gambler on the skids, Dennehy works his once grand but now dirtied, crumpled cream linen suit with blood red kerchief in breast pocket, like a tap dancer with a lithe, graceful energy that sizzles and lights up the heavy material like a neon sign at midnight. In “Krapp’s Last Tape” Dennehy becomes even more vulnerable, his large expressive eyes almost black with emotion and bone crushing regret while listening to the excited, optimistic and romantic ramblings of his 39-year-old self.
Truly, anyone at any age who has ever read an old journal or diary entry from their youth can identify with these universal themes of recounting losses and wins and trying to justify them to account for present loneliness.
In lesser hands, these two very dark and melancholic selections viewed in one night might cause one to leave the theater hopelessly depressed, but Dennehy’s electric and finely crafted performance makes it an evening of powerful theater that “everyman” and every woman can feel empowered by and in my opinion, make it a must see.
Note to self; don’t let two decades go by again without seeing awe-inspiring work of this caliber by a master like Brian Dennehy.
“Hughie” and “Krapp’s Last Tape” extended by popular demand through February 28th 2010 at the Goodman Theatre.
