Last year the Washington Shakespeare Company got a new home at Artisphere. This season, they’ve got a new name: WSC Avant Bard. The first offering of their season is a very pretty production of Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days,” in which the main character, Winnie (Delia Taylor), is high above the audience, buried up to her chest not in sand or dirt, but in yards and yards of what looks like patterned silk.
Yes, there are pebbles here and there, nesting in the material, but the general effect is that Winnie is wearing a very long ball gown. It’s a curious choice on director Jose Carrasquillo’s part, since Winnie is generally considered to be the embodiment of human nature bravely holding off the vast earth threatening to engulf her, not a grand dame gamely but elegantly losing her purchase on living space.
| Onstage |
| ‘Happy Days’ |
| » Where: Black Box, Artisphere, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington |
| » When: Through Sept. 25 |
| » Info: $25 to $30; 703-875-1100; artisphere.com |
As with all Beckett’s plays, the critical issue is the text, and Taylor delivers it cleanly and clearly. Winnie has many roles to play as she talks on and on, sometimes to her husband, Willie (Carrasquillo), sometimes to herself, sometimes to the air. There are many repetitions and non sequiturs in Winnie’s speech, and Taylor delivers them smoothly.
She is comfortable with Beckett’s contrasts of tone: ironic, humorous, accusatory, lyrical. And she succeeds in suggesting that the opposite of her excessive optimism and compulsive cheeriness is not pessimism but disappointment. Although this production does not capitalize on the sexual innuendo embedded in the text, Taylor skillfully blends the two essential elements of the play, anxiety and comedic resignation, particularly in the second act, where she is buried up to her neck and can express emotion only with her words and eyes.
Carrasquillo is entertaining as Willie, nearly invisible in Act I. When he does finally circle around in front of Winnie where she can see him, his effort to climb up toward her is appropriately agonizing.
“Happy Days” is a metaphorical play, and a good production of it will leave room for audiences to interpret its words and symbols however they please. To some, it will be simply a metaphor for a failed marriage. To others it will be the distillation of human effort to address and delay oblivion. The WSC Avant Bard production leaves plenty of space for all interpretations.
