Playing with Beckett

Krapp's Last Tape

A mix of improvisation, music with tunings of Beckett.

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The Story of a "little" Tour

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La Crosse, Gays Mills, Independence, Viroqua Performances

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This project was an experiment to bring a unique theatre experience to small towns and villages of Wisconsin.Alvin Felch and I began meeting in January to talk about plans, and dreams of touring a small theatre production.We had no grants and little resources so we pooled what little we had to buy the materials to construct a portable stage that would stack and fit into the back of Alvin's hatch back.

Alvin designed the stage to fit in the back of the car.

The First Show!

It all began with the first peformance on March 10, 2010 at the Community Center in Gays Mills. It was a chillySpring night and about 40 people came to the opening night performance of the project. We were elated! If people showed up in numbers to see a Beckett play in Gays Mills, then surely we would draw more people from Viroqua and La Crosse.

Two old artists were on their way. The next stop Independence, Wisconin.

My Home Town

In April the show traveled to The Opera House of the City Hall in Independence,Wisconsin where I was born and raised. In the years I grew up, the City Hall was declining and the second story "Legion Theatre" was condemned and occupied by pigeons and dust.

"While city government activities have continued for this past century on the first floor, in the dark shadows and corners of the old Opera House in the hall's second story; ghosts from performances and events past had lingered lonely and lost on the dusty stage and empty auditorium for nearly 30 years. Peeling paint and ragged fabric had clung to the walls and windows.Finally, in 1997, the city and the Friends of City Hall with pride and determination made a commitment to restore this historical gem and coax it back to its once genteel days."

The quote is from the Friends of City Hall page".

I wanted to peform in the restored Opera House for the past 10 years. Finally, it happened on April 10 with all the ghosts in the dark shadows in attendence. Plus fifty real live and breathing people showed up! They stayed afterward to talk and visit and even help us carrythe stage and props down to the street.

This performance remains as one of the most warm and memorable theatre experiences of my life.

Thank you Independence!

On to "Viroqua"

June 11 & 12

Dennis in rehearsal

What Happened?

It was some political, social, psychological, wind or winding that soured the community to "Krapp", I guess.

You see for three years I worked in Viroqua teaching improvisation and building a company called INTOIT".

One day, about a year ago they had a secret meeting; one that I was not invited to attend. Late that night I recieved a phone callfrom one of the members to tell me that they were going out on their own. I was hurt, and that pain lead me away from communicatingor wanting to talk to those who made the decision and then informed me with a late night phone call.

After the the show we learned that the new company "Raw Milk" (spun from INTOIT) had changed the date of their show to the same Saturday night of the Krapp performance. Coincidence?

This town was "probably" named so after a Mohawk girl who lived "down east." "A Connecticut man saw her perform in a theatre, liked the name, and bestowed it later on the Vernon county settlement. What better place to bring "Krapp" than a town that was named from a theatre performance?

It was in Viroqua that the experiment hit the skids, the slide, the whirlpool of undertows that drew us down unexpectedly and quite nearly drowned us.

Fifteen people attended the two performances; 9 on Friday 3 on Saturday. The press releases were all sent out a month in advance, Alvin had been playing at the local Farmer's Market and Coffee House weeks in advance. Yet, so few people showedup in this community that carries the reputation of support for creativity and theatre in general.

This sort of stuff occurs in the theatre far too often. I really don't know the reason for the poor turn out. I am quite used to it.

Alvin packed his accordian and we loaded the stage to travel on to the Pump House Regional Art center in La Crosse, WI!

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More about the production

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The evening of Playing with Beckett is centered by Krapp's Last Tape performed by Dennis Kern.

Alvin Felch

Accompanies "An Evening with Beckett" with the accordion

Dennis first performed the piece in 1994 in Madison, Wisconsin when Kevin Lynch of the Capital Times spoke of his fresh interpretation of Beckett ...

Madison actor Dennis Kern may have found an inlet to a fresh personal interpretation of a work that, like much of Beckett needs to be dusted off from countless layers of academic interpretaton and analysis.

-his own Krapp, with shades of Marcel Marceau and Emmet Kelly. He moves like a marionette being toyed with, all herky-jerky impulses and collapsing sighs. His eyes small pools of despair. One senses a mortal twinge of decrepitude lurking inside him like an explosive sneeze...sudden, messy and final.

A Taste of KRAPP....

The quote below is from the Capital Times article on Thursday, March 31, 1994.

"Krapp is a man at the end of his rope, hanging on by his grimy fingers. They twitch as he clicks on the tape recorder. The voice seems to mock him with bits of his sorry, wasted past. But somehow Krapp senses that the tapes autobiographical musings might just help him... Ah, t'hell with it. Go suck a banana."