Anne Coleman | Phoenix Staff

Mary Scallen playing the eternal optimist Winnie, the protagonist embedded in rock, in a Lantern Theater Company production of "Happy Days."

BY ANNE COLEMAN

In print | Published October 8, 2009 — Updated October 20, 2009 17:14

Winnie is trapped inside a mass of rock and earth from the waist down, and has been for quite some time, but you couldn’t lose at misery poker to a happier person.
The lead character in Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days,” currently playing at the Lantern Theater Company in Philadelphia, Winnie is capable of optimism far more remarkable than the extraordinary situation she is in.

Played with limitless exuberance by Mary Elizabeth Scallen, longtime member of The People’s Light and Theatre Company, Winnie leaves a lasting impression. One of the most challenging female roles on today’s stage, the character of Winnie requires stamina to portray: the play is two acts of essentially solo performance with only one or two brief glimpses of Winnie’s absentee cave-dwelling husband. Portraying Winnie also requires the ability to keep an audience engaged in a world where nothing “happens” in the traditional sense of the word, and to do so without the use of most of her body. The second act, in which Winnie has been further swallowed by the earth until only her head sticks out, demands a level of facial expressiveness that far exceeds the capacity of most performers.

“Happy Days,” like so many of Beckett’s plays, is not ostensibly about anything. The action of the play is not contained within the traditional conceptions of dramatic or comedic action. Winnie spends the play talking, seemingly about nothing, and executing a series of rituals that help her to connect to her world and to define herself within that world. Her internal and psychological endeavors constitute the “action” of this play.

Winnie is trying to give life — and more specifically, individual days — some semblance of meaning. Her obsession is to pursue an illusion of happiness and to pursue the diversion that accompanies the thought that things have changed for the better.

What Scallen and director David O’Connor achieve is all the more remarkable, given this context. “Happy Days” is fast-paced, engaging and wildly funny. Scallen’s sing-song “No, no,” whenever she finds herself getting too close to the sad truth is as powerful as it is simple. Winnie’s extreme and diverse efforts to remain “happy,” and the resulting emotional burden, are conveyed with ease.
There is no way to determine whether Scallen or O’Connor contributed more to this effortless portrayal of irrationality and the all-too-human pursuit of life’s elusive meaning. What is clear, however, is that this production of “Happy Days” is the result of a truly exceptional collaboration between two big names in the Philadelphia theater scene.

It is also a testament to the Lantern Theater Company’s value in a city that is populated by a large number of small theater companies. Lantern’s first staged production was Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” in 1994, and this return to its roots in its 15th anniversary year is a good sign.
Next up this season, the theater will be staging the Bill Irwin/Mark O’Donnell adaptation of Moliere’s “Scapin.” One can only hope that artistic director/co-founder Charles McMahon is planning to incorporate some of the unassumingly dangerous comedy in “Happy Days” into the more frivolous, flippant comedy of “Scapin.”

As for “Happy Days,” it seems that the team can do no wrong. Scenic designer Meghan Jones’s two-sided set (the St. Stephen’s Theater seats audiences on two sides of the stage) is everything it needs to be, and is just as successful from the late-comers balcony as it is from either side of the audience. The lighting design captures the miserable truth that Winnie is forever exposed to the elements, cooking in the sun even when she tries to drift off to sleep, and the sound of the bell to wake and sleep is as annoying the second time as it is after a month. As a collective, the production’s design reliably conveys the overlying truth of Winnie’s life: there is no escape.

For the audience, however, escape isn’t particularly desirable. Watching Winnie suffer is entirely fascinating and often enjoyable.

Anna is a senior and can be reached at acolema1@swarthmore.edu.

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