HAPPY DAYS - 2025

By Diana Simmonds

May 14 2025

HAPPY DAYS, Wharf 1, Sydney Theatre Company, 5 May-15 June 2025. Photography by Brett Boardman

There are monumental roles—not many, particularly for women—and Samuel Beckett’s Winnie in Happy Days is one of them. Her chirpy tragedy and irritating optimism are heartbreaking and unforgettable, and when played by a great actor, indelible.

Magnificent Ruth Cracknell in 1991 (STC) opened my eyes to the play and to Beckett. It meant eager anticipation of Julie Forsyth in 2009 (Belvoir) whose virtuosity had to fight with an egotistical set. In 2021, Red Line at the Old Fitz gave us a brilliant Belinda Giblin as a bittersweet antidote to Covid19. And now, it’s 2025 and the world is a raging mullock heap of rarely paralleled awfulness. (Aside from the federal election result, yet it’s an each way bet as to whether or not we live happily ever after for the next three years.)

So who better to bring Winnie back to life than Pamela Rabe: a great clown, a heart-stopping tragedian, and one of the most riveting actresses we have. And you need an actor to be riveting in this role because there is nothing else going on. It’s her top half for the first act, and her face for the second. It’s a tribute to Rabe that for 100 minutes, the capacity house was silent, aside from a couple of well-stifled seasonal coughing fits.

The play is co-directed by Rabe and Nick Schlieper, who is also responsible for the desolate mist-grey backdrop and unadorned slag heap in which Winnie is stuck, as well as the invisibly apposite lighting that conveys a stinking hot day as well as horizonless isolation. Opening in darkness heightened by sound which might emanate from an A380 in take-off mode (sound design Stefan Gregory), the lights go up on a snoozing Winnie, unmoved by the racket or the piercing alarm clock. When she does sit up, displaying bare shoulders, a pearl necklet, and a flouncy 50s frock (design Mel Page), it is to lift her face to the sky, beaming beatifically and exclaiming, “Another heavenly day!”

There is an uncanny resemblance between Winnie and Miss Docker, the tragic comic heart of A Cheery Soul, of which the play’s author, Patrick White, said it was about “the destructive power of good”. The same can be said of Winnie. Her merry utterances and optimism in the face of all adversity are momentarily pitiful, then excruciating: “Ah well. No worse.- No better, no worse. No change. No pain …hardly any…”

All the while, she smiles – a practiced smile that’s more a grimace and never genuine. Winnie knows she must smile, but the reasons for it are far in the past, and the present offers no clue or assistance. It’s impossible to look away as she goes through her daily ritual and the contents of her large black bag, as well as her facial expressions. These are as much a part of her existence as her toothbrush, emery board, and lipstick. And it is an existence, not a life, so that as time passes and a glimmer of realisation seems to penetrate her buoyancy, there is a whiff of desperation in the air and it’s acrid.

Her lonely plight is highlighted and somehow made worse by the presence of husband Willy (Markus Hamilton) – invisible over the back of the heap except for occasional groans, a word, or a gesture. Why he groans is made clear as time passes and Winnie’s incessant chatter continues. Whether she fears silence or the looming final abyss is neither here nor there, because she floats above all, especially how her every word is punctuated by Beckett’s OCD instructions. (“That is what I find so wonderful, that not a day goes by - (smile ) - to speak in the old style - (smile off) - without some blessing - (Willie collapses behind slope, his head disappears, Winnie turns towards event) - in disguise.”) And yet Rabe’s performance is as fresh and unacted as if she’s ad-libbing the lines.

Back in the last century, STC fielded complaints from disgruntled audients who’d come to see Ruth Cracknell expecting something like Mother and Son. It’s as well to know that while Happy Days isn’t easy, it’s endlessly rewarding and deeply affecting. Put in and take out as much or as little as you wish while savouring a performance to remember. Don’t miss.