Happy Days by Samuel Beckett at Washington Stage Guild

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 husband Willie dozes. She spends her day going through familiar routines, endlessly chattering and reminiscing about better days almost as a vaudeville routine for one. Then a bell rings, and she starts again. Is she trapped in this cycle or free to leave? Beckett’s absurd satire about the human condition lets you ponder what it all means. Featuring WSG Founding Company Members Lynn Steinmetz and Bill Largess. “Happy Days remains ONE OF THE MOST UNSETTLING AND UNFORGETTABLE PLAYS in the modern canon.” – The New York Times “a STRANGELY BEAUTIFUL attempt to grapple with the fragility of time and the fleeting poetry of optimism” – ArtsHub.com