The Cutting Ball Theater

About Cutting Ball's production of KRAPP'S LAST TAPE , the San Francisco Bay Guardian noted "Artistic director Rob Melrose approaches the material with supreme assurance and passionate but never stifling fidelity...one of Beckett's most autobiographical and surprisingly affirming pieces," while SF Weekly said "In Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose's sensitive production, the ears, not the eyes, serve as pathways to the soul. The San Francisco Examiner declared, "To watch [Paul] Gerrior's quietly mesmerizing performance is a revelation," with Theater Dogs concurring, "Paul Gerrior is a pitch-perfect Krapp. The Daily Californian called the production "A fascinating piece of theater...utterly entrancing." It is Krapp's 69 th birthday and, as has become his custom, he hauls out his old tape recorder to review one of the earlier years - in this case, the recording he made when he turned 39. As he looks back with longing on the ashes of his youth, he sees the irony of the choices he has made in light of his current life. Exploring the isolated nature of human existence, KRAPP'S LAST TAPE premiered as a curtain raiser to Endgame in 1958 and was originally written for Irish actor Patrick Magee. The play is considered to be Beckett at his most autobiographical, drawing heavily on his own failed love life, his drinking, and his, at the time, literary failures; it is a glimpse at where things might have gone. Veteran stage and screen actor Paul Gerrior returns to Cutting Ball Theater as Krapp in KRAPP'S LAST TAPE . He previously appeared in Cutting Ball's productions of Beckett's Endgame , Roberto Zucco , and As You Like It , as well as the workshop production of Trevor Allen's Chain Reactions for Risk is This...The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. Other credits include Othello with Guerrilla Shakespeare and Chain Reactions with C.A.F.E. His film credits include The Seagull Project and Saloon Song . David Sinaiko returns to the Cutting Ball Theater as the tape-recorded voice of Krapp . He most recently appeared in Cutting Ball's productions of The Bald Soprano , Victims of Duty and Endgame , as well as The Taming of the Shrew , As You Like It , The Sandalwood Box, Ajax, for Instance,Macbeth , and Woyzeck , among others. Additional credits include productions at the Goodman Theatre and The Actor's Gang; he is a founding member of Chicago's New Crime Productions. In addition to KRAPP'S LAST TAPE , Rob Melrose , Artistic Director and co-founder of Cutting Ball Theater, has directed several productions for the company, including Victims of Duty , Avant GardARAMA!, Endgame, The Taming of the Shrew , Macbeth , Hamletmachine, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Mayakovsky: A Tragedy, Roberto Zucco, The Vomit Talk of Ghosts (World Premiere), The Sandalwood Box , Pickling , Ajax, for Instance , Helen of Troy (World Premiere), and Drowning Room (World Premiere). Additionally, he has translated No Exit , Woyzeck , Pelléas and Mélisande , and Ubu Roi . Melrose's other directing credits include productions at the Magic Theatre ( An Accident ), Guthrie Theater ( Happy Days , Pen ), California Shakespeare Theater ( Villains, Fools, and Lovers ), and Crowded Fire ( The Train Play ), among others. He has assistant directed productions at The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival ( Hamlet , Oskar Eustis, director), Berkeley Repertory Theatre ( The Pillowman , Les Waters, director), American Conservatory Theater ( Indian Ink , Carey Perloff, director), Guthrie Theater ( Othello , Joe Dowling, director), and Yale Repertory Theatre ( Twelfth Night , Mark Rucker, director). He is a recipient of the NEA / TCG Career Development Program for Directors, and is currently the Public Theater's artist in residence at Stanford University. Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish dramatist, novelist and poet. He is considered by many to be one of the last modernists. As an inspiration to many later writers, he is thought to be one of the first postmodernists. Considered to be one of the key writers in the "Theatre of the Absurd," his works were minimalistic and, according to some interpretations, deeply pessimistic about the human condition. Beckett's perceived pessimism (mitigated by an often wicked sense of humor) was not so much for the human condition, but for that of established cultural and societal structures. In addition to prose, poetry, teleplays, and pieces written for the radio, Beckett's body of works for the stage include Waiting for Godot (1952); Act Without Words I (1956); Act Without Words II (1956); Endgame (1957); KRAPP'S LAST TAPE (1958); Rough for Theatre I (late 1950s); Rough for Theatre II (late 1950s); Happy Days (1960); Play (1963); Come and Go (1965); Breath (1969); Not I (1972); That Time (1975); Footfalls (1975); A Piece of Monologue (1980); Rockaby (1981); Ohio Impromptu (1981); Catastrophe (1982); and What Where (1983). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. Co-founded in 1999 by theater artists Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers, Cutting Ball Theater presents avant-garde works of the past, present, and future by re-envisioning classics, exploring seminal avant-garde texts, and developing new experimental plays. In addition to Playwrights Foundation, Cutting Ball Theater has partnered with the Magic Theatre and Z Space New Plays Initiative to commission newexperimental works. The company has produced a number of World Premieres, West Coast Premieres, and re-imagined various classics. Recipient of the 2008 San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie award for outstanding talent in the performing arts, Cutting Ball Theater earned the Best of SF award in 2006 from SF Weekly and was selected by San Francisco Magazine as Best Classic Theater in 2007. Cutting Ball Theater was recently featured in the February 2010 issue of American Theatre Magazine.