The structure of this plotless drama counterpoints musings of the younger Krapp with present, contrasting reality.

[00.00]
Krapp-69 initially sits motionless and then begins the business with keys … tape … banana… sitting motionless again … keys … banana… drink … ledger. He turns the pages, finds the entry he wants and reads: 'Box … thrree … spool … five …'

[13.55]
Krapp-39 recorded on tape, announcing rather pompously: 'Thirty-nine today, sound as a - ' Memories are stirred of Bianca with the 'very warm' and 'incomparable' eyes, his addiction to alcohol, and a projected 'opus magnum'.

[23.30]
Krapp-69 switches recorder off, broods, looks at his watch, gets up, goes backstage into darkness, drinks … then resumes listening.

[24.30]
Krapp-39 initial excerpt from account of his mother's death.

[25.00]
Krapp-69 interrupts to read from dictionary … then resumes listening.

[27.12]
Krapp-39: continues the account of the dark nurse, the mother's death, the black ball and the white dog, the 'memorable equinox'.

[32.00]
Krapp-69: switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again.

[32.10]
Krapp-39: an extract replays from the romantic boating idyll ('farewell to love').

[33.00]
Krapp-69 switches off, winds tape back, switches on again.

[33.35]
Krapp-39 recounts the full 'farewell to love' episode.

[38.00]
Krapp-69 switches recorder off … loads virgin reel and begins to record his last tape.

[54.44]
He suddenly bends over the machine, switches off, wrenches off tape, throws it away, puts on the other, winds it back to the passage he wants and switches on.

[55.55]
Krapp-39 narrates again the extract from 'farewell to love,' concluding:

Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back.

[58.30]
Old Krapp sits motionless, staring in agony before him. He does 'want them back'.

The tape runs on in silence. Krapp sits on, in solitude, suffering memories of faded dreams.

The tape Krapp recorded 30 years ago alternates with and influences Old Krapp's current perception of his changed self. The duration of the earlier tape is confined to just a third of the drama (approx. 21 minutes), the emphasis being on Krapp-now and his understanding of a wasted, near-spent life.