Beckett's 'Happy Days' honors the absurd

Winnie is stuck in more ways than one.

Buried to her waist in a growing mound of dirt, bathed in perpetual daylight and yearning for acknowledgement, UNC professor Julie Fishell plays the optimistic Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days,” which opens the “PlayMakers Repertory Company”:http://www.playmakersrep.org/’s season tonight.

“At the center of the play is this really strong life force,” said director Rob Melrose. “Winnie is unbelievably positive. No matter what adversity she comes to, she sees a positive way through it.”

“Happy Days” depicts a typical day in Winnie’s desolate life.

PlayMakers has not produced a Samuel Beckett play in more than 20 years. It was time for the company to share Beckett’s work with the community, said PlayMakers’ producing artistic director Joseph Haj.

“It’s simply a masterpiece of existential drama,” Haj said.

Each day after Winnie wakes, she sings a prayer and catalogues the contents of her black shopping bag — a morning routine.

As the dirt slowly covers her, Winnie tries to find solace by talking incessantly to her husband, Willie.

Played by UNC professor Ray Dooley, Willie rarely emerges from behind the mound — and acknowledges his wife even less.

“This is a woman who has been in a one-way relationship for a long time,” Melrose said.

“She has about 98 percent of the lines.”

Despite her insurmountable and inescapable obstacles, Winnie consistently proclaims that another “happy day” has arrived.

Fishell and Dooley are both professors in the Department of Dramatic Art. Fishell said she uses the techniques she teaches to inform her own performance.

“It’s a real fallacy to say, ‘If there’s stillness on stage, that there’s nothing going on,’” Fishell said.

“I think Beckett is the master of that — he proves there can be stillness but yet a whole world is changing.”

As the audience sees less and less of Winnie’s physical body, they grow more attached to her emotional reality, the actors said.

“The play becomes interesting and strange when the audience really accepts [Winnie] as a real person,” Melrose said.

Beckett’s plays are known for their absurd abstraction.

And Melrose, as co-founder and artistic director for The Cutting Ball Theater in San Francisco, has made a reputation directing this particular genre of modern theater.

Melrose brought a well-received version of “Happy Days” to the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in 2009. After seeing the production in Minnesota, Haj knew that he wanted to bring Melrose’s vision of Beckett’s play to Chapel Hill.

“He has the right intelligence — theatrical and otherwise — for this kind of work,” Haj said.

Melrose and Haj said they have wanted to work together for some time, and “Happy Days” became the vehicle for their collaboration.

“The idea is to make Beckett available to anyone,” Melrose said.

Actors and directors alike agree that Beckett’s play is odd — and probably not for younger audiences.

“There is a lot to chew on,” Melrose said. “But I think everybody can enjoy experimental work, especially if they have the tools to enjoy it.”

To help audiences better evaluate and understand the play, PlayMakers will hold a discussion immediately following the performances as part of its smaller PRC2 series.

Fishell said she’s up for the challenge of her role.

“There is nowhere to hide” she said.

“I’m facing the audience and they are facing me.”

Contact the Arts Desk at artsdesk@unc.edu.