"Happy Days"

Theatre review
"Happy Days" at the Kitchen Theatre
Ithaca Times
October 22, 2008
659 words
"'Kitchen Theatre stages Beckett's 'Happy Days'"

full text here

Kitchen Theatre stages Beckett's 'Happy Days'

Mark Tedeschi

Happy Days by Samuel Beckett. Directed by Jesse Bush. Starring Susannah Berryman and R.M. Fury. With scenic designer Steve TenEyck, lighting designer Kelly Syring, costume & prop designer Nik Taylor, sound designer Nate Richardson, associate scenic designer David L. Arsenault, and stage manager Michal Kaufer.

"They're in purgatory," my companion said with the naivete of a neophyte "LOST" lover. "It took me a while, but I think I got it."

He posited his theory during the intermission of Happy Days, Samuel Beckett's formidable two-person, one-set play, showing until Nov. 2 at the Kitchen Theatre. Later, my friend told me that somewhere in the middle of the second act, he realized he wasn't going to get any concrete answers.

That's because there aren't answers - just situations, bizarre as they come, and ruminations running the gamut of existence.

The story begins before you enter - a 50-ish woman in a yellow dress, buried a tinge over waist-deep in a clumpy pile of dirt tanned by the harsh, unabating overhead light, rests her head, asleep. Behind her hangs a picture window for the 21st Century: a projection screen displaying drifting clouds, and later a desert landscape under blinding sun.

A piercing bell sounds offstage, waking our hero, Winnie, who throws her head back and declares "Another heavenly day!" Winnie is played by Susannah Berryman, who calls the part "one of the actors' Mount Everests;" if that's so, Berryman plants a flag on the summit. Under Jesse Bush's au fait direction, Berryman's timing and articulation of expression hold fast to the tenor of Beckett's universe. Winnie speaks at length, chiefly platitudes and observations of her surroundings, assuming that since she is able to speak there must be someone to hear.

Lucky for her, there is: her companion of sorts, Willie. Willie, older than Winnie and much less loquacious, is played by R.M. Fury with admirable devotion - not an easy task, since he spends most of the time either gravelly grunting in an out-of-sight hole behind Winnie's residence or facing away from the audience, reading selectively from newspaper headlines.

Besides Willie, Winnie has her belongings. From her bag, she pulls out and admires, among other things, a toothbrush, a music box, a nail file, a revolver. Her possessions aren't essential, but as time ordains, just like in real life, most are running out.

She indirectly mocks the audience between stretches of disorderly monologue; she remembers a man named Shower or Cooker who asked: "What's the idea... stuck up to her ditties in the bleeding ground... What does it mean...What's it meant to mean?" She imitates Shower/Cooker with a childish whine. Early on, Beckett warns the audience of the futility of insular questions like these.

The second act, believe it or not, is bleaker than the first. Winnie awakes to the echoing bell to find herself buried up to her neck, unsure if Willie is still there. Her attitude turns from desperate to resigned, as she has, now limbless, lost the ability even to end her own life.

Winnie's strange state has its brighter moments: She and Willie share a laugh at Willie's muttering of "formication" (the sensation of insects crawling over your skin) after Winnie watches an emmet (an ant) carrying an egg.

The audience laughs, too, but they have about as much idea why as do the main characters. Is it the morbid thought of Winnie covered in bugs? The simple tee-hee pun? Or something completely unrelated, perhaps an inside joke between the two? The answer isn't as important as the connection, scarce and brief, that they share. Their laughter is a microcosmic glimmer of pleasure in Beckett's admittedly fatalistic (and absurdist) view of the world.

With Happy Days, Beckett isn't after clean satisfaction; as a result, the play isn't for everyone. After all, it is what it sounds like: a woman stuck in a pile of dirt aimlessly pontificating to herself.

To understate, Happy Days is not meant to be easily comprehended. It isn't even meant to be understood, necessarily. Winnie's existence is meant to be discussed and interpreted to no end, just as our strange gift of cognition should be applied to mulling over our own existence, no less preposterous and haphazard than hers.

Susannah Berryman as “Winnie” in Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days,” now at the Kitchen Theatre. (Photo by Megan Pugh)