“Unlike Shakespeare, whose plays are so hospitable to variation, Beckett knows exactly what he wants,” writes the New York Times critic Laura Collins-Hughes. “You do it his way because he says so—and he’s right.” That precision is evident in Beckett Briefs, a collection of short plays from the 1950s, now onstage at the Irish Repertory Theatre. The evening begins with Not I, a monologue by a mute woman who, in lonely old age, hears voices only to realize they are coming from her own mouth. Next is Play, which finds a man, his wife, and his mistress trapped together in the afterlife. The evening ends with Krapp’s Last Tape. Taking the stage alone, the virtuosic F. Murray Abraham confronts his lost youth through recordings he made in earlier, more hopeful days. Ciarán O’Reilly directs. —Jeanne Malle