The cluttered set for the production has a similar feeling to the Harold Pinter play The Caretaker, which the theatre staged on Dunedin’s waterfront during the 2014 festival.
In the Fortune Theatre Studio, the set of Krapp’s den spills from the stage into the corridor.
Among the clutter on the stage is a disused lift shaft, representing the lack of movement in the central character’s life.
Near the front row in the audience, hangs a light shade.
Most of the bulb inside has been painted.
The paint softens the light beaming towards the audience but the unpainted area on the 200 watt bulb allows a "strong" beam to illuminate the face of Dunedin actor Simon O’Connor.
Fortune Theatre lighting designer Garry Keirle (35) said he played with the light to help the audience be immersed in the world of a man at the end of his life, as he rekindles his remembered youth by listening to tapes of his younger self.
A bulb in a desk lamp has been painted except for a circle in the middle.
The circle through which light escapes gives the actor in the one-man play finer control directing light.
The painted bulb ensures light does "not spill forward" into the audience and is contained in "nice little pools" on the stage.
The pools of lights allow the actor to move between them, attracting the attention of the audience to different parts of the set.
The lighting in the play differs from that of a more conventional plays because O’Connor, rather than a lighting technician, has to turn the lighting and off as the play unfolds.
"If he doesn’t turn it on, it doesn’t get turned on."
Beckett wrote the comic-tragic play in 1958 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 for the play.
● The first of the eight festival performances of the play begins at 6.30pm tomorrow.
