“Happy Days”, Theatre Collection London at Arcola Theatre
Jeremy Malies in east London
23 December 2024
Winnie and Willie’s mound is unusual here. Bored from the start, I noted an Auvergne cheese wrapper and an empty box of AA batteries. The box for own-brand supermarket ibuprofen tablets was also empty, perhaps taken in its entirety by a theatre-goer earlier in the run. I should have sought relief by swallowing any that were left by the end of a disappointing – and to my mind disrespectful – version of Happy Days by Theatre Collection London. I’m aware that this is a piece in which sly, playful old Beckett deliberately challenges audiences regarding their engagement, but I really wanted to be somewhere else.
There were so many stumbling blocks. Having actually read the play on the way home, I noted that initial stage directions ask for “Maximum of simplicity and symmetry” in the set. Every other production I’ve seen (quite a few now) has respected this. Winnie’s mound can be soil, sand, gravel or some other aggregate but it is always homogeneous. Here, in Catharine Humphrys’s design, the mound is presented as landfill and made up of recognizable rubbish, in fact mainly litter. As the company say in their flyer, Beckett did indeed ask for a “pathetic unsuccessful realism” elsewhere, but he is talking about the props which are primarily Winnie’s possessions.
Direction, lighting, and sound design are all by Victor Sobchak who, despite carrying just about the whole project, manages to make his name all but illegible in a woefully designed and printed leaflet. No photos have been made available despite extensive marketing of the show to the press.
On one occasion, Sobchak hit the jackpot with his lighting. “Begin your day, Winnie!” is a scary line in that you have to think that Beckett has put her in a limbo of endless almost identical days. For a moment the lighting showed three shadows of her parasol, and I speculated that she might be replaying the previous two days. My fancy perhaps but it was a rare moment when I became engaged and curious.
This should be a terrifying play but at times it struck me as resembling a Joyce Grenfell routine. Sadly, my real identification with a character came when Winnie (Catharine Humphrys) mentioned how she is jealous that Willie (Chris Diacopoulos) is able to sleep at will. But overall, my enthusiasm wore down like Winnie’s tube of lipstick and toothbrush. Perhaps I’m missing the point, and you can make a case that it’s a play purely about language rather than character. Diacopoulos is the more natural comedian and nails some of his Pinteresque lines including dictionary definitions.
I may have arrived with the wrong mindset, but the approach irritated me. I also wonder whether additional input (apart from design collaboration with Freya Mallia who is an “A” Level student) might have given Sobchak’s production more rigour and balance. Humphrys who has much good work behind her and appeared last year in The House of Bernarda Alba at the National, might have helped Sobchak with changes of pace and a few physical tics in addition to Beckett’s forensic stage directions.
Early on Humphrys is expressive and scores with confessional moments such as acting out recollections of her first kiss. But of course she becomes buried deeper and deeper in the mound, so must rely in the later stages on voice alone. Humphrys is skilful in calibrating the moments when her character shows flickers of affection for Willie and confesses that she can’t bear to be alone.
The one time I truly warmed to this project had nothing to do with the play as written and came when Humphrys had trouble extricating herself for the curtain call and Diacopoulos (showing more solicitousness than his character) was gallant in helping her out. Even Lehar’s Merry Widow didn’t do it for me this time. A disappointing take on a play that has terrified me in the past.
Happy Days plays at Etcetera Theatre, 28–31 January 2025.
