Last Friday I went to see Katherine Catmull in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at Hyde Park, as part of my ongoing attempt to see more theater. I took a certain perverse pleasure in buying a theater ticket when my finances are so marginal; it felt like an oath of loyalty to art. (As far as I know, art doesn’t care either way, but it’s more for my benefit.)

Though sleep-deprived and hungry, I was glad I went. I’d never seen it, and I’m not likely to get another chance soon, let alone starring someone as good as Catmull. She did not disappoint.

If you’re not familiar with the play, the first act is essentially a monologue (with a few contributions from a barely-articulate partially-visible husband) by a middle-aged woman buried to the waist in a mound of earth. The second act is another monologue by the same character, this time buried up to her neck.

Obviously, this is a challenge for both actor and audience to maintain connection throughout the play. But even in my drowsy state, I was engaged and, eventually, moved. Which surprised me.

I knew the premise of the play, so I thought I knew the play. But it’s a play, not an essay or a novel, and so reading it, or reading about it, is no substittute for seeing it performed. What struck me was how strong my physical and emotional reaction when the second-act curtain rose on Winnie buried up to the neck. I knew that was what I was going to see, but I immdiately felt constriction, and panic, and hopelessness, and it just got more emotionally wrenching from that point on. The second act introduces a wider range of emotions, too, but the groundwork (sorry) was laid as soon as we saw her buried up to her neck. Or, more accurately, the groundwork was laid throughout the first act and was then present by implied comparison throughout the second. Put it this way: I didn’t expect to have a strong emotional reaction to the play, and despite my physical condition (and the audible conversations emanating from the tech booth), I did.

It makes me think of Kareem’s point below that memorable situations make memorable characters, because Happy Days is almost like a challenge Beckett set himself: make the audience care about a character who can’t move and to whom nothing happens while she’s onstage. Which he (and Katherine Catmull) did, to me, anyway.

And it’s also a great reminder about how powerful stage pictures can be. Obviously, this one took on additional weight as the single biggest visual change over the course of an entire play, but it was telling nonetheless. In Jennifer’s improv dance class on Sunday, she talked about how you can drastically affect the stage picture and the relationship between players by changing what dancers call your level. Probably not to the extent that a change in the entire environment does, but still.

Actually, now that I think about this, Bryan Roberts figured this out a long time ago. Saturday I made a joke about him starting scenes standing on a chair, but now I see the big-picture brilliance behind this move. Forgive me, Bryan. I just didn’t get it.