Patty Gallagher makes most of Beckett in ‘Happy Days’
By: Georgia Rowe
Special to The Examiner
August 20, 2009
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Tour de force: Stepping in at the last minute to replace Marsha Mason, Patty Gallagher gives a particularly dynamic performance in Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days.”
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If a last-minute cast change looked likely to derail the California Shakespeare Theater’s production of “Happy Days,” audiences needn’t have worried.
When Samuel Beckett’s bleak comic masterpiece opened Saturday, Patty Gallagher, replacing the originally scheduled Marsha Mason (who withdrew two weeks ago for “personal reasons”), stepped into Jonathan Moscone’s production and gave a brilliantly bravura performance.
Nothing less than the entire outcome of the production was riding on Gallagher’s appearance.
“Happy Days” is essentially a one-woman show; the central character, Winnie, is buried up to her waist in dirt, and the only other character, her husband Willie, hardly appears at all.
With little action, and no plot to speak of, Winnie delivers a nearly uninterrupted monologue. She’s solely responsible for holding the play together, and Gallagher proved more than equal to the challenge.
Beckett, of course, makes the text fascinating.
First produced in 1961 — almost a decade after “Waiting for Godot” — this play, with its everywoman heroine, continued the great Irish playwright’s lifelong preoccupation with existential themes.
If Winnie can’t seem to stop talking, it’s no wonder. Words are all she has to keep isolation at bay.
Saturday’s performance was an evening of firsts — the first time Cal Shakes has presented a Beckett play, the first time Moscone (the company’s artistic director) has staged “Happy Days,” and the first time that Gallagher, a professor of theater arts at UC Santa Cruz, has appeared in Orinda.
She brings an impressive blend of dramatic intelligence and physical technique to the role.
With her body immobilized in its earthly prison, Gallagher’s face becomes an ever-changing map of expression — cheerful as she reminds herself that she “mustn’t complain,” teary when “sorrow keeps breaking in.”
Speaking Beckett’s fractured lines, Winnie’s stories, bits of songs and childhood memories become as real as the few pitiful possessions — a toothbrush, a mirror, a gun — she keeps in a black bag. So does her will to hold off the darkness, with the repeated mantra that today will be “another happy day.”
Moscone and his design team give the play a splendid production.
Todd Rosenthal’s set, lit by York Kennedy, is a nightmare landfill; Meg Neville’s costumes give the characters — particularly Winnie, in a prim blue gown and frumpy hat — an aptly archaic look per Beckett’s specifications. Bradford Chapin’s soundscape adds depth.
For his part, Dan Hiatt makes a sadly dissipated, wonderfully inarticulate Willie.
But this is Gallagher’s show. Her Winnie has a mountain of a play to climb, and she makes it to the top with consummate skill.
THEATER REVIEW
Happy Days
Presented by California Shakespeare Theater
Where: Bruns Amphitheater, Highway 24 at Gateway Boulevard, Orinda
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 4 p.m. Sundays; closes Sept. 6
Tickets: $20 to $63
Contact: (510) 548-9666; www.calshakes.org
