THEATRE
Written by Samuel Beckett, by Melbourne Theatre Company
At Southbank Theatre MTC, The Sumner, until 10 June 2023
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars:***
This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio interview on Arts Weekly, 3MBS, on Sat 13 May 2023. KH
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| Judith Lucy-MTCHappyDays_photoPiaJohnson |
Samuel Beckett’s play, Happy Days, first performed in 1961, is a bleak, comic-tragic, almost solo work that taxes the female lead in myriad ways. In this MTC production directed by Petra Kalive, comedienne Judith Lucy plays the beleaguered but relentlessly cheerful Winnie as she contends with being buried up to her waist, then to her neck in a mound of earth that will soon fully engulf her.
I say “almost solo”, because also on stage is Winnie’s husband, Willie (Hayden Spencer), who is barely (in all senses of the word) visible. He is upstage, hardly seen most of the time by Winnie or the audience. Occasionally, he crawls out of his unseen hole, hauls his pale, whale of a body onto the rear of the mound where he sits or lies in the scalding sun, clad in just a straw boater and a pair of tighty whities.
Winnie prattles and chirps, for the first half at least, craving some spark of communication or of past love. Occasionally, Willie responds to her bleating pleas for him to communicate, replies monosyllabically, sings a snatch of song, reads a phrase from his crusty old newspaper, and once he even roars laughing at his own lame joke.
This existential isolation is set in a desolate, dry, dying and totally unpopulated terrain (Eugyeene Tey, Designer); even a passing ant brings a moment of distraction and fleeting hilarity.
In the first half, Winnie has upper body movement and the use of her arms, so she can engage in her daily routine that involves carefully extracting various items from her large, black bag. She uses her toothbrush, files her nails, checks her hair, puts on her hat, quotes random snatches of poetry, sings her song – if she can remember it – and lovingly handles the revolver that nestles in her bag – just in case?
Lucy captures the tiny glimmers of light as Winnie naively enjoys these small joys in the face of total confinement and despair.
It is a tall order for anyone to play the role of Winnie and, although Lucy is accustomed to being solo on stage doing a comedy routine, in a play such as this – for which Beckett has specified very clear stage directions in use of props – there can be no interacting with the audience, messing about with lines, improvising or idiosyncratic insertions.
Beckett’s play plumbs the depths of humanity’s existential crisis, and we witness Lucy’s Winnie wrestling with the everyday grind of filling the yawning time each day and fighting to endure, or even rise above, the cruelty of existence. Winnie is entrapped, both physically and existentially, in endless trauma, boredom, ailments and loneliness.
Winnie cannot remember, loses concentration, is constantly interrupting herself in her daily chores because she forgets, or the item she needs is inaccessible, or Willie will not reply to her increasingly desperate and wailing entreaties.
On opening night, Lucy started nervously, but found her rhythm , delivering some moments of comic splendour that were most successful when she engaged her own laconic, idiosyncratic vocal style that makes her comedy work so distinctive. Her Winnie has a faded glamour, the vestiges of past vanity and a relentless cheer in the first half. This contrasts with her bleak persona in the second half, when Winnie is totally immobilised from the neck down, and explores the pathos and grim blackness of Winnie’s despair.
However, Kalive’s production and Lucy’s performance miss the extreme dynamic change of tone, vocal delivery and pace, and the rude contrast between Winnie’s relative positive lightness in the first half and her punishing anguish in the second half.
It is difficult not to compare Lucy’s Winnie to other exceptional interpretations that have gone before, including Fiona Shaw and Billie Whitelaw in the UK, and in 2009, Julie Forsyth at the Malthouse in Melbourne.
But this is a compelling performance of Beckett that prods the wound that is the existential dilemma: how do we live through the crawling moments of each day when all our humanity and joy is draining away?
by Kate Herbert
CAST
Winnie
Judith
Lucy
Willie Hayden Spencer
CREATIVE TEAM
Director
Petra
Kalive
Set & Costume Designer Eugyeene Teh
Lighting Designer Paul Lim
Composer & Sound Designer J. David Franzke
Movement Consultant Xanthe Beesley
Voice & Text Coach Amy Hume
Assistant Director Keegan Bragg
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