Hello and welcome to this audio introduction to Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at the
Young Vic theatre, directed by Natalie Abrahami.
The audio described performance is on Saturday 14th March at 2.30pm. There will be a
touch tour at 1.30pm. If you’d like to book for the touch tour, please call the Young Vic box
office on 020 7922 2922. We’ll repeat this intro in the auditorium at 2.15pm. Happy Days
will be described by Ruth James and Kirstin Smith.
The show lasts for just under two hours. The first act is an hour long, there’s a twenty
minute interval, and the second act is 35 minutes. Please note that the soundscape uses
very loud electronic sound with no visible source.
This introduction will take about six minutes to listen to. It gives an overview of the set,
characters and costumes.
The programme quotes Dammed to Fame, the biography of Samuel Beckett by James
Knowlson as follows.
Over a meal one day Samuel Beckett confided to the actress Brenda Bruce how he came
to write the play. He said: “Well I thought that the most dreadful things 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; 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.”
The set for this production of Happy Days is on a long, rectangular stage that thrusts into
the auditorium, with bench seating on three sides and in the gallery above. It’s a slice of an
unearthly, silver-grey landscape, reminiscent of volcanic rock.
The landscape slopes steeply, from some six metres high at the back, to less than a metre
high at the front. It contains two different kinds of rock, and their shape and texture
contrast dramatically. At the back, jagged grey-brown strata are closely packed. The strata
slant to the left, stacked like an untidy deck of cards, poking out at slightly different depths.
Their rugged edges and tight compression give a sense of immense force.
In the centre of the strata, there’s a narrow, dry channel. Dust and gravel rain down this
straight groove from time to time, including tiny fragments of mica — a very light, friable
rock with a gold and silver sheen.
Below and to the left of the channel, there appears to be a hole a couple of metres deep,
lined by sandy, grey rocks.
Stretching from the bottom of the channel to the front of the stage — about six metres — is
a completely different texture of rock. It lies in thick, grey-brown ripples. The ripples fan out
from the channel, as if lava has poured down through it, and then down the slope, before
hardening. The surface of this rock is speckled with the gold and silver mica fragments.
The side edges of this landscape are absolutely straight, as if it’s a geological sample that
has been cut out of its own world, and dropped here in the Young Vic auditorium. The
stage is about five metres wide, and the front corners of the rectangle are sliced off.
Spaced evenly around the front edges are eight small black speakers on short stems.
Hanging from the ceiling above, there’s a lightbox, of the same width and length as the
landscape below. It’s a black rectangle, over a metre deep, with a luminescent surface
inside, which glows a bright greyish white or pale blue. The glowing surface is at a steep
angle inside the box. Depending on its colour, the rock below is touched with shades of
purple or terracotta.
This unearthly landscape seems to be completely untouched by human hands, but as we
enter the auditorium, there is a large, squarish tent positioned at the bottom of the dry
channel, just where the rocks turn to a smooth, rippled slope. The lower half of the tent is
grey and the top is off-white. Perched in this barren landscape, it’s reminiscent of survival
equipment, or a police forensic tent. One side of the tent is lit by a portable workshop
lamp, which sits on the rocky surface.
There are two characters in Happy Days. Winnie is in her fifties with a long, attractive face
with deepset eyes and a generous mouth. Her reddish wavy hair comes down to jaw-level
and has a light coating of white dust. Winnie wears a contemporary aqua blue dress with a
photographic pattern of lilac pansies, elbow-length sleeves and a deep ‘sweetheart’
neckline. With this she wears a string of matching blue beads. When the play opens,
Winnie is buried up to her waist in the exact centre of the mound, the lava seeming to pour
down and outwards from her waist like a vast skirt. Within reach of her left hand, there is a
capacious black leather shopping bag. To her right, lying on the ground, there’s a faded
blue parasol that also matches her dress. When she speaks, Winnie’s back is upright,
shoulders straight and head raised. Her hair is neatly combed and she looks out with
bright eyes and a wry smile.
Willie is in his sixties. His grey hair is cut in a short back and sides style, tufty on top, and
he has a lush white moustache. In the first act, when he eventually appears, he is halfhidden by rocks. His bare back is turned towards us. It’s painfully reddened by the sun,
skin peeling from his shoulders. Willie moves slowly, his sunscorched face concentrated
on his own thoughts.
Cast and production credits
Winnie Juliet Stevenson
Willie David Beames
Design Vicki Mortimer
Light Paule Constable
Sound Tom Gibbons
Movement Joseph Alford
Voice Emma Woodvine
And it’s been directed by Natalie Abrahami
That’s the end of the introductory notes. If you’d like to book for the touch tour, please call
the Young Vic box office on 020 7922 2922.