Why?

Krapp’s behavior during the play is not quite understandable or predictable. Why did he peel a banana, put it in his mouth and then suddenly throw it away? In the middle of listening to his tape, why did he sweep everything off his table on to the floor? Why did he always move towards the door in the back making a L-shape? Why did he make pauses while listening to the tape?

All of his actions seemed impulsive even if they were planned ones. In the very beginning, Krapp looks at his clock before doing anything. This proves that he was planning on doing something at a certain time which is listening to the tape. He reads a document while he is recording himself which proves that he was planning on recording as well. However, all these, especially the recording, seemed to be just spontaneous.

This is because he was never calm at any time. He always seemed nervous and unstable as if he did not know what to do. He was sweating a lot too. In the script, I could notice that the word “hesitates” is constantly repeated. All these combined make Krapp look very abnormal and impulsive through out the whole play.