Ligra is pleased to bring to Bangalore an acclaimed production of Happy Days by the Nobel Laureate playwright Samuel Beckett. This Rogue Theater production has played to audiences in Arizona and California in the US, and has toured to Ecuador in South America. It stars Patty Gallagher in the title role.
In this hallmark play by one of the twentieth century’s greatest playwrights, Happy Days exposes the eternal and sometimes hopeless optimism that most of us learn to summon in the face of our most vexing burdens.
Winnie, the protagonist, is literally stuck in the mud. She is buried waist down for the entire duration of the play in a mound of earth with her husband Willie, scuffling helplessly around. No explanation is given for why she is in this unusual predicament, and nor, apparently, is one required. For 90 minutes, we are entranced by Winnie’s unending prattle, her strident optimism, in the midst of this most absurd of all life’s situations, and we are forced to laugh and cry with her endearing wisdom and foolishness.
Samuel Beckett won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. He is widely credited as having altered the course of theater with his bleak and minimalist settings infused with hope and optimism with plays like Waiting for Godot, and The End Game. Happy Days was first performed in New York City in 1961.
For more information on the show please visit www.ligra.in
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Thank you for bringing this beautiful play to Bangalore. The performance of Ms. Gallagher was so impressive- she makes you laugh and cry. The message in the play comes across 'simply' yet forcefully.
ReplyDeleteCongrats and thanks again.
What a play, and what exemplary performances! It was not a play that one easily forgets. I blogged about it here.
ReplyDeletehttp://windwatermind.blogspot.com/2009/12/strident-optimism.html
Many thanks, and hope there are other such thought-provoking plays...
-Indra
For all its flaccidity, I felt exhilarated and surprisingly liberated after watching this play.
ReplyDeleteA contradiction that can only be credited to incredible performances from its all too visible lead actors. One that kept our focus and the other that consumed our sub-conscience.