HAPPY DAYS by Samuel Beckett, directed by Leah Cherniak (Theatre Columbus). At Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson). To May 29, Tuesday-Saturday 7:30 pm, matinee Saturday 2 pm. 416-504-7529. See listing. Rating: NNNN
If you want to see a major Canadian talent giving a masterful performance, don’t miss Tanja Jacobs in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days.
Technically a two-hander, Beckett’s play features Winnie (Jacobs), buried up to her torso in a mound of earth, and her partner Willie (John Jarvis). Willie spends his time around the back of the mound, seems to live in a hole and offers the occasional comment to the action, reading snippets from the newspaper.
Still, the majority of actions and lines belong to Jacobs, who, under Leah Cherniak’s direction, emphasizes the first act’s comedy and offers a more serious tone in the second. A woman intent on being contented, Winnie sometimes has to exhort herself to remain buoyed up in a less than positive world.
Winnie relies on Willie for support, despite the fact that he’s frequently invisible to her, which might account for Winnie’s moments of occasional bemusement.
At first, Jacobs uses her mobile face and resonant voice to draw out the clown elements in Winnie there’s a touch of Lucille Ball in the delivery and (half)-body language.
But by the second half, the characters’ lives – and maybe the world as well? – are winding down. Winnie, embedded now up to her neck, can only move her eyes and other parts of her face she’s literally grey, some of her energy drained, and her cheery mood has become more sombre.
It’s here that Jacobs becomes focused and intense, giving a huge heart to the seemingly stream-of-conscious speech that fills Winnie’s waking moments. Telling a story from the past, maybe her own past, she conjures up a truly remarkable blend of sadness and fear. Even a happy discovery near the play’s end doesn’t truly lift Winnie’s mood.
Jacobs and Cherniak understand that at one level, Happy Days is a romance, one that might exist only in Winnie’s fantasy. The actor’s beautifully modulated performance, alternately comic and serious, has a rare intimacy that takes us deep into Winnie’s mind and soul.
Set designer Victoria Wallace’s mound isn’t simply the scorched earth called for in the script. It has a touch of the garbage mound, with pockets of flotsam and jetsam tossed around randomly by the wind.
The production’s blend of laughter and tears is a fine Theatre Columbus cocktail, a mix of tickling bubbles and unsettling aftertaste.[rssbreak]
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
