Stockard Channing on the Beckett estate: ‘They really don’t give you any leeway’
She’s had a long and storied career, with Tony and Emmy awards to her name (not to forget an Oscar nomination), but Stockard Channing finds herself in new territory this August. She talks to Kelly Apter about choosing Krapp’s Last Tape as her directorial debut and its journey from kitchen table to Fringe stage
From a feisty teen making the most of her last year at high school to a razor sharp First Lady in the White House, and many more besides, Stockard Channing has 50-plus years of characters under her belt. But whether she was acting in Grease, The West Wing, Six Degrees Of Separation or any of the myriad other stage and screen ventures she’s undertaken, Channing was always at the behest of a director. Until now, when at the grand age of 82, she’s ploughing all that skill and experience into her directorial debut.
The person on the receiving end of her sage theatrical wisdom is actor and long-time friend David Westhead. He’ll be taking on Samuel Beckett’s seminal one-person play Krapp’s Last Tape, a powerful reflection on loss and loneliness. Focused on a 69-year-old listening back to the diary tapes he recorded as a younger, more hopeful man, the piece hits softer or harder depending on the age and stage of the watcher, and bears repeat viewing. ‘It’s a piece you can keep returning to and can also see many different interpretations of,’ says Channing. ‘However, anyone staging it has to keep within the very narrow parameters of the Beckett estate, right down to the white shoes. They really don’t give you any leeway.’
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Channing and Westhead met on a film set 26 years ago and have remained fast friends ever since, even bubbling together during covid after she relocated to the UK. ‘We were having dinner one night and David said he wanted to return to the stage after 12 years away, and that he wanted to do Krapp’s Last Tape, and for me to direct it. So we started small, sitting at my kitchen table and just reading through the text. And at first we really didn’t know if it would go anywhere, we just wanted to do the work. But we know each other extremely well, and trust each other’s taste, so our communication was very open, which is unbelievably important between a director and an actor.’
The duo worked on the play during their spare time, alongside other commitments, eventually performing it in a few small venues. Channing says they’re both ‘beyond thrilled’ to be taking it to the Edinburgh Fringe, where all profits will go to the Wembley To Soweto Foundation (a charity founded by Westhead to provide training and life skills to disadvantaged young people). Channing will take part in several post-show Q&As, but when it comes to talking about her experience of directing, she insists her input was relatively light touch.
‘It wasn’t like directing a Broadway musical,’ she says. ‘I didn’t have to make a lot of decisions about set and costumes and things like that, because all of that is set by the Beckett estate. So my job was just to deal with my friend and his performance. I like to say that I conducted it more than directed it because a lot of it had to do with the timing, the decision to take a pause or not take a pause. Krapp is someone who’s looking inward, he’s not performing for the room. You’re literally watching a bunch of private moments.’
Krapp’s Last Tape, Assembly Roxy, 5–31 August, 1.25pm.