Happy Days

Theatre performance Happy Days by Deborah Warner, opening performance of Holland Festival 2008.
The Holland Festival opens with the British production of Happy Days by Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), in which a middle-aged woman is buried in sand up to her waist. Everything that she needs lies within her reach: a pocket mirror, a toothbrush, an umbrella and a pistol. Untiringly optimistic, she is determined to love life, even when only her head remains above the sand. The Irish actress Fiona Shaw appeared in the Holland Festival last year with her solo performance Readings; she now plays one of Beckett’s most famous characters in an unforgettably powerful manner and, in collaboration with Deborah Warner, her regular director, she finds a fine balance between tragedy and humour. The apocalyptic sets provide an extra threatening dimension to this masterpiece of theatre literature.