Happy Days

Samuel Beckett's critically acclaimed final full-length play, essentially a one-woman tragicomic monologue, has been a tour-de-force for many an actress since its 1961 premiere. Winnie, a woman in her 50s, is inexplicably buried waist-deep in a mound of scorched earth in a bleak landscape, while nearby, her huaband Willie dozes. She spends her day going through familiar routines, endlessly chattering and reminiscing about better days almost as a vaudville routine for one. Then a bell rings, and she starts again. Is she trapped in this cycle or free to leave?