By Michael G. Williams
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE
John Astin is perhaps one of the most prolific character actors in the business. Best known for his role as the mustachioed patriarch Gomez Addams in the 1960s television classic The Addams Family, Astin has worn many hats, including writer, producer, and director, even earning an Academy Award nomination in 1969 for his short film Prelude.
Today, he serves as a visiting professor and director of the Theatre Arts and Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., where he’s gearing up to star in a production of Irish author Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. The play is a portrait of an isolated, aging writer who celebrates the end of each year with a recording of his impressions.
Throughout the play, Krapp listens to these recordings of his younger self from years past—each one providing a bit more insight into how he became the man that he is. “The play is
both comic and sad, tender and sensitive, and a powerful look at aging,” Astin says.