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==Synopsis==
The play opens in darkness and gradually reveals M, a
As the play unfolds, we hear a voice that we assume belongs to M, as it reflects his thoughts. He recalls past encounters with a woman and simultaneously visualizes his remembered or imagined self, referred to as M1, acting out the described motions within the circle of light. M contemplates what triggers the woman's appearance. At first he says, "When I thought of her..."<ref>{{cite book |first=Samuel |last=Beckett |date=1984 |title=Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett |___location=London |publisher=Faber & Faber |page=259 |isbn=978-0-5711-3040-5}}</ref> but later realizes that she simply manifests to him, always at night. He reflects on his routine, starting with his return home after walking the roads since daybreak.<ref>In
In summary, the play begins with M in darkness, seen in a recurring pose at his invisible table. We hear M's thoughts as he reminisces about encountering the woman, while M1 acts out these recollections in the circle of light. M reflects on the cause of her appearance, his routine, and his continuous cycle of summoning her at night and leaving at dawn.
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* The woman can appear and then vanish immediately.
* The woman can appear and linger.
* The woman can appear and 'speak' to him, i.e. inspire him. He uses the example where she mouths the words, "but the clouds
* The woman can fail to appear at all, the most common scenario.
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Not all of Krapp's actions take place at his table, we hear him pouring drinks and attempting to sing in the darkness surrounding his stage as a means of distracting himself from the task in hand; in ''Quad'', the players' only reality is within the lighted square as is the case with the women of ''[[Come and Go]]'' but in ''... but the clouds ...'' all the real action takes place in the darkness, the central circle of light is a place of transition only.
The fact that the woman may well have been real, rather than some [[Stereotype|stereotypical]] projection of M's ideal woman, is suggested by the line, "With those unseeing eyes I so begged ''when alive'' to look at me."<ref>{{cite book |first=Samuel |last=Beckett |date=1984 |title=Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett |___location=London |publisher=Faber & Faber |page=260 |isbn=978-0-5711-3040-5}}</ref> The camera focuses on the woman's face while these lines are spoken. Enoch Brater argues that "what he longs for is not the beloved but the image of his beloved, the evocative [[metaphor]] he has made of her. His is an exquisite despair. In his secret ceremony Beckett's male figure all but revels in it."<ref>{{cite journal |first=Enoch |last=Brater |title=Billie Whitelaw's TV Beckett |date=2003 |journal=Assaph: Studies in the Theatre (Samuel Beckett Issue) |number=17 |editor1-last=Ben-Zvi |editor1-first=Linda |publisher=Tel Aviv University |page=193 |issn=0334-5963}}</ref> Because the old man realises he cannot physically recall his beloved, he makes do with [[simulation]]; he torments himself with memories of what it was like when she came before. M is not only trying to remember, he is trying "to remember the way in which he used to remember
"For Beckett and for Yeats, there is a difference between remembering and not remembering, but both writers remind us that not remembering does not necessarily equal forgetting. That which is not consciously 'remembered' by an individual can still return to impose itself is a variety of ways, one of which both Yeats and Beckett qualify as a kind of haunting."<ref name="multiref1"/> This makes one viewer's comment as to the nature of W all the more interesting when they call her "the character who appears but isn't really there – she only gives the appearance of an appearance."<ref name="multiref2"/>
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