The play stars Jerry Finnegan and is directed by Vincent O'Neill, artistic director of Buffalo's Irish Classical Theatre and adjunct professor of theatre and dance at UB.

The story is set in some future time in which the eponymous Krapp, a bitterly nostalgic old man now nearly blind and deaf, listens to audio tapes he made more than 30 years before, and comments on them in a dark, comic monologue in which he tries to reconcile the present with a fleeting love affair he had in his past. After considering his failures as an author and a lover, he sits staring into space, an old and tired man. Like so many of Beckett's characters, he is torn between the pointlessness of his life and his seemingly inexhaustible instinct to keep going.

The play is a classic work of absurdist drama spiced with Beckett's unique use of the English language and his marriage of nihilism and humor. Finnegan has been acclaimed by critics and audiences alike for his performance in the title role.

Finnegan holds a master's degree from the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and has performed with that company, the New York Shakespeare Festival and many other theaters throughout the country. He has received critical applause for many of his roles, in particular for his interpretation of Beckett in "Endgame" and "Waiting for Godot," as well as in "Krapp's Last Tape." He heads the acting program in the UB Department of Theatre and Dance and is on the opera faculty at the Eastman School of Music.

O'Neill, an actor, director and mime artist, heads Buffalo's Irish Classical Theatre and is a lecturer in mime and acting at UB. O'Neill is a graduate of University College, Dublin and Trinity College, Dublin. He also trained as an actor at Dublin's noted Abbey Theatre School and as a mime artist at Marcel Marceu's International Mime School, Paris.

He is the founder of Ireland's first professional mime company, the Oscar Mime Company and of the Dublin Theatre School, a training conservatory for professional actors, which he directed for eight years. An actor and director of considerable note, he has played many distinguished roles, perhaps most notably, the poetic presence of James Joyce in an award-winning one-man show, "Joyicity," which he adapted from Joyce's work. He has toured the show extensively in the U.S. and Europe to consistent praise.

Thursday and Saturday performances of the play are at 8 p.m., Friday performances are at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 (general admission) and $5 (students and seniors) and can be obtained at the Center for the Arts box office (645-ARTS) or through any TicketMaster outlet.