Happy Days
Patty Gallagher was not Cal Shakes’ first choice for the role of Winnie in its production of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days. Academy-Award nominated actor Marsha Mason withdrew from the production because of personal reasons. Gallagher took on the role and gave a startling performance.
Almost plotless, repetitive, and driven by emotion, "Happy Days" is a notoriously difficult play. It is extremely character-driven, but it requires that Winnie, its main character, be half-buried in dirt the entire time.
"No staging opportunities here," wrote artistic director Jonathan Moscone in the program. "Stripped of my capacity to tell a story through movement...I feel like one of my senses is disappearing."
Comedy is inherently tough. More so if the main character remains stationary. But the cast of "Happy Days" clearly overcame that limitation. Winnie successfully communicated hope and terror with subtle facial movements, the usage of silence, and inflection; in other words, with superior dramatic craft.
One does wonder, however, if "Happy Days" is the right play for an outdoor theatre. For 90 minutes all eyes are on Winnie, who cannot do anything, but talk and gesticulate. At the same time, as in any other city, planes fly by and car alarms go off in the distance. "Happy Days" is a risky choice, to say the least.
The second act, which finds Winnie buried up to her neck, is particularly challenging to watch. The light and sound works are minimal. The only other character, Willie, played by Dan Hiatt, is short of a zombie. The public finds itself mostly staring at Winnie’s head for 30 minutes. Classic Beckett. All power to words and to the way they are said.
Anything but a great performance by Gallagher would have bored the audience. She made Beckett’s words alive and was able to give several emotional dimensions to Winnie’s isolated state: hopeful and comedic on the surface, terrifying and pathetic in the inside. Her reward was that the audience stayed with her through the whole evening. The play runs at California Shakespeare Theatre through Sept 6.
