Beckett's `Happy Days'

Of the five supreme 20th century dramatists, Pirandello, Shaw, O'Neill, and Brecht are dead. Only Beckett remains, slowly adding masterpiece to masterpiece.

The Theatre Company of Boston is to be lauded for offering, if for only one week, the local premiere of Beckett's next-to-latest play, Happy Days (1961). And it was luckily able to obtain the services of Ruth White, who originated the main role at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York, and whose virtuosity in it was one of the most stunning achievements of the 1961-62 season.

In his playwriting Beckett thrives on frugality and restraint. He tends to use a small cast, to observe the classical unities, and then to set up further obstacles for himself. Now he uses a mute character, now just one man and a tape-recorder; now he confines one character to a wheelchair and two others inside ashcans, now he does away with spoken words entirely. In his latest work, simply called Play (1963), the three characters are ensconced in big white urns with only their heads visible.

The two-act Happy Days takes place in the midst of an expanse of scorched grass; the stage is to reflect the "maximum of simplicity and symmetry." There are only two characters: the dumpy, 50-year-old Winnie, and her impotent, sixtyish mate Willie. But the talpine Willie has very little to say or to do; and thus the play is essentially a long monologue by Winnie. When all else fails, she's got her logorrhea to keep her warm.

Winnie is denied all ambulation, for in Act I she is embedded up to her bosom in a mound. She has in front of her only a parasol and a crowded shopping bag to supplement her own thoughts as time passes. She entertains herself (and us) with this bag of tricks.

In Act II, she is denied even the resource of gesture, for now she is embedded up to her neck, and can move only her eyes and lips. We can guess that the unwritten third act would find her completely buried.

Although Beckett's Waiting for Godot is--despite most critics--an optimistic work, the title of Happy Days is blatantly ironic. Throughout the play, the outlook--both literal and figurative--is bleak. Death and annihilation are imminent. The whole work is a study in irony--and the irony, in both word and action, is heightened by the ludicrous situational context. And it is ludicrous. In spite of all the pathos and the spectre of death. Happy Days is on balance a comedy. Many of Winnie's actions are highly funny, and she is by no means reluctant to crack puns. There is also no shortage of incongruity, which is often considered the main wellspring of humor.

The comedy is never frivolous, though. Faulkner, in accepting his Nobel Prize, stated, "I decline to accept the end of man. I believe that man will not merely endure. He will prevail." Beckett is not so sure. But at least his characters do their damndest to endure.

Any production of Happy Days will stand or fall totally on the abilities of its actress. On the basis of last night's dress rehearsal, Miss White's hold on the role remains utterly authoritative. Despite all the superimposed encumbrances, she gives an astonishingly modulated performance based on a remarkable gift for subtle timing and inflection. I cannot imagine another player's surpassing this feat, which is destined to be a classic. Miss White is most ably supported by Edward Finnegan's Willie; indeed Finnegan is more piteous than was John Becher in the original production.

Happy Days at the Bostonian and the current revival of O'Neill's All God's Chillun at Brandeis are far and away the two most important theatrical events of the season. Need more be said?