Pinter Performs “Krapp’s Last Tape”

British playwright and actor Harold Pinter has embarked on a ten-performance run of “Krapp’s Last Tape”, a play by his friend Samuel Beckett. The limited run at London’s Royal Court Jerwood Theater Upstairs will end next Tuesday. It’s a one-act, one performer play. Pinter plays Krapp, a 69-year-old man who is listening to a tape recording he had made when he was 39. “Krapp’s Last Tape” was first performed at the Royal Court in 1958 by Patrick Magee. Beckett wrote the play for Magee after he heard him do a reading of his novel “Molloy”. Beckett said he liked the “cracked sound” of Magee’s voice. This production, directed by Ian Rickson, is part of the Royal Court Theater’s 50th-anniversary season, which is also a celebration of Samuel Beckett’s 100th birthday. Beckett died in 1989. Pinter is 76 years old and has been battling cancer of the esophagus. Last year he delivered his Nobel acceptance speech by videotape and from a wheelchair. At that time he said he would write no more plays. Pinter’s health has improved somewhat, although he performs the play in a wheelchair. By all accounts, Pinter’s performance is electrifying and is a never-to-be-forgotten experience. The New York Times quoted an actress in the audience, Gillian Hanna, as saying, “It is beyond acting. There is something about the coming together of this particular piece and this performance that took me somewhere else.” It’s fair to say that most of us will never have the privilege of seeing Harold Pinter perform any play any time anywhere. However, when he gave his Nobel acceptance speech on December 7th 2005, Pinter took the opportunity to deliver a tirade against American foreign policy. And all Americans can and should download a copy of that speech. Following are a few excerpts of Harold Pinter’s comments about American politics: “Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed. “As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true. “The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it. (cut) “The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. (cut) “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people. (cut) “I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as 'full spectrum dominance'. That is not my term, it is theirs. 'Full spectrum dominance' means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources. “The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don't quite know how they got there but they are there all right. “The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity - the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons - is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it. “Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government's actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent political force - yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we can see growing daily in the United States is unlikely to diminish.” As they say in Great Britain, “Hear, hear!”