One of the bulbs in a wall sconce is burnt out—one suspects for years—and the chandeliers also bear signs of neglect. So even before an elevated train rumbles overhead, we know the kind of hotel this is, despite the desk clerk's formal ( but decidedly shabby ) uniform. It's the perfect refuge for "Erie" Smith, a low-roller traveling on a shrug and a shoeshine, without the shine. And tonight, after a five-day bender following the death of the former night-concierge—the closest thing to a friend he had—Erie gambles that the late Hughie's successor will prove likewise enabling.

Eugene O'Neill's duet for loners can be viewed as a courtship in the distinctly masculine mode comprised of equal parts swagger and sentimentality. Erie's braggadocio bespeaks his fear of the airy illusion which fuels his world deflating. We sense, more clearly than in the 2004 production ( also directed by Robert Falls ) , the dimming of the dazzle as Erie seems to visibly shrink inside his rumpled suit, until, bare moments before the light is extinguished, his solitary audience kindles his own small beacon to rescue both men from the darkness.

You will find no such gritty salvation in the second of the paired one-act plays comprising the double-ticket. Krapp's Last Tape is Samuel Beckett at his most exasperating, the action opening on the title character, who could, himself, be the desk clerk at a hotel located somewhere in that terrible void Conor McPherson invoked for The Seafarer. "Action" is an optimistic description, for it is an almost interminable wait before he stirs, during which we can hear wheezes, sighs and Four Seasons ring-tones throughout the auditorium. What follows is hardly more active—our myopic hero eats bananas ( and slips on a peel, naturally ) , retreats to a back-room for a drink or three, and listens to tapes of his younger self engaging in Proustian introspections.

Barrel-chested and big-voiced, Brian Dennehy often commands the stage by his sheer size. But an empty stage—Joe Grifasi's enigmatic concierge notwithstanding—requires more than mere presence, and it is to Dennehy's credit, and Jennifer Tarver's direction, that our attention never falters ( though spectators are advised to shift their gaze occasionally, lest their eyes become fatigued by the intensely focused illumination in Krapp's study ) . The contrast between these two portraits of aging is as vivid as the sight of a 71-year-old actor so very much still in his prime signals hope for us all.