Staging strident optimism

Becketts Back

The reputed play Happy Days by the Nobel Laureate playwright Samuel Beckett will come down to the City from the US.  Ligra, a Bangalore-based theater-staging group, is bringing this acclaimed production of Happy Days to the City.

The Rogue Theater production, directed by Cynthia Meier, has played to audiences in Arizona and California in the US, and has toured to Ecuador in South America. Patty Gallagher in the title role, has been widely acclaimed. Happy Days will play in three shows on December 12 and 13, at the Ranga Shankara.  

Happy Days exposes the eternal and sometimes hopeless optimism that most of us learn to summon in the face of our most vexing burdens. Winnie, the protagonist, is literally stuck in the mud. She is buried waist down for the entire duration of the play in a mound of earth with her husband Willie, scuffling helplessly around. For 90 minutes, we are entranced by Winnie’s unending prattle, her strident optimism, in the midst of this most absurd of all life’s situations, and we are forced to laugh and cry with her endearing wisdom and foolishness. Tickets can be purchased through www.indianstage.in or call 98800 36611.