Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Theater: Happy Days, the Flea Theater, June 2015


This description was found online at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days_(play)

Beckett confided to Brenda Bruce what was going through his mind as he sat down to write the play:
He said: "Well I thought that the most dreadful thing that could happen to anybody, would be not to be allowed to sleep so that just as you're dropping off there'd be a 'Dong' and you'd have to keep awake; you're sinking into the ground alive and it's full of ants;[16] and the sun is shining endlessly day and night and there is not a tree … there's no shade, nothing, and that bell wakes you up all the time and all you've got is a little parcel of things to see you through life." He was referring to the life of the modern woman. Then he said: "And I thought who would cope with that and go down singing, only a woman."[17]

Below- playwright, director and actors:
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) is widely recognized as one of the greatest dramatists of the twentieth century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. Mr. Beckett is most renowned for his play Waiting for Godot, which launched his career in theater. He then went on to write numerous successful full-length plays, including Endgame in 1957, Krapp’s Last Tape in 1958, and Happy Daysin 1960. Mr. Beckett received his first commission for radio from the BBC in 1956 for All That Fall. This was followed by a further five plays for radio including Embers, Words and Music, and Cascando. Like no other dramatist before him, Mr. Beckett’s works capture the pathos and ironies of modern life yet still maintain his faith in man’s capacity for compassion and survival no matter how absurd his environment may have become.

Andrei Belgrader is a theater and television director. 
Performed by Brooke Adams and Tony Shalhoub 
http://www.theflea.org/show_detail.php?page_type=0&show_id=161