Samuel Beckett's Happy Days (1980)

Suffused with tenderness, lucidity, and humor, Samuel Beckett's Happy Days is a comedy in pure, music-hall style. Legendary three-time Tony Award-winning actress Irene Worth (Lost in Yonkers) stars as Winnie, an optimist who--deep down--senses she has little to feel "happy" about, though she never allows a day to pass without looking her best and hoping for better. Worth gives a tour-de-force performance as she chatters incessantly and cheerily on a variety of subjects, portraying Winnie as the embodiment of humankind's nobler virtues: wise, just, majestic, and committed to her conviction that "this will have been a happy day."

One of the finest issues in this series

Terrific production of this Beckett play. Worth gives a brilliant performance. Glad it was documented. June 7, 2006

A great introduction to beckett's theatrical work

This is a wonderful production of Happy Days, as far as I know faithful to Beckett's specific directions (he considered his stage directions as important as the dialog). Irene Worth is magnificent, as is the actor who played Willy. By all means, buy this DVD and enjoy it. If you're new to Beckett, this will whet your appetite for more. For the big Beckett fan (like me), I highly recommend Beckett on Film, the 4-DVD set of all 19 of Beckett's theatrical works, with a fine documentary and commentary, done by 19 contemporary directors. It's pricey but well worth the money.

There is an interesting controversy about filming Beckett's work and the 'interpretation' that that implies. Make your own decision -- and enjoy. May 26, 2006

I loved it, carousing my sense of timbre.

everyone seesm to get confused befuddled(s),opaque when comprehensibility is the focus when in fact there really isn't anything directly direct in Becjkett, it is like a "phanthom" language we know and don't know, sure English, but an English suffused,impacted,pre-opted,turned and whirled/twirled around for contemplation. Irene-y gets Beckett I think in the gradations of restriant she harbors, she takes into her limited heart here. Beckett keeps a short leash on his actors,like musicians reading notes and dynamic markings, articulation of timbre, of the English language. Listening to Beckett is like accumulations, distributions of tones, and timbres, fragments of sounds vocables consconants, all beautiful if you know where to listen. I find the weight of time to be painfully there, that was his intent I think to make you feel as if you are dragging yourself through the day, arduously, how time places "weight" weight of being alive, of living, of attenuations of consciousness, what a human being needs to do to keep going, to go on. This weight is only releived with the sense of lightness,some call it humor, but it is humor within Beckett's context. You may find too much the comedic in Beckett and sometimes it is overdone, overwrought, wrong-headed,where the words are just sputtered,spitted out without a sense of its placement within an elegant structure, Beckett build,constructs for us, for him,for you and for me. Understanding I think happens only over periods of time, swabs of time, temporality in packages time in parcels. Beckett continues to be the extreme challenge for the actor, the virtuosic if that is what you think you want or think you need as an artist of the word,of the drama. February 16, 2005

Essential and timeless: a perfect marriage of two artists

One of Beckett's most profound and moving plays is also one of his funniest.

Irene Worth, one of the world's greatest stage actresses, embodies one of theater's greatest female roles with both a lyrical tenderness and a deep sensuality.There is, in fact, nothing overblown or stagy about her performance: Worth is the quintessential Winnie. Famous for her deeply intelligent interpretations and blessed with a marvelously resonant voice, she is the ideal actress for a part that requires so little physicality and so much vocal depth. She understands every word of Beckett's text, and conveys her understanding with every breath she takes.

To say she is too "theatrical" and to ridicule the pronunciation of her name are pitifully inaccurate and pitifully beside the point.

The recording of her performance in this great play is a marvelous document to possess. October 4, 2003

The brilliance of Beckett and Worth

Irene Worth was a great actress. When teamed with Samuel Beckett's words, it is an experience to be treaured. True, Beckett is not for everyone. But for anyone with a brain, a heart, a soul, and a sense of humanity, Beckett connects. Those who don't "get" Beckett tend to hate Beckett and that's too bad. For the rest of us, Beckett hits a chord, creates a visceral reaction, illuminates the abyss. And Miss Worth (whose name was pronounced Irene-y, just as it is in England, where she spent a great deal of her career) is simply delightful to watch, as she always was. She combines the sadness, optimism, coyness, despair, beauty, and humour that is Winnie, in a way that few actresses could hope to do. July 1, 2003

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