Happy Days

Every day for Winnie is a "happy day," despite the fact that she is increasingly buried (literally) under the weight and clutter of her own repetition and inactivity. Samuel Beckett's puzzling, and often troubling, play is an excellent choice when teaching both modern drama and comedy. It's not the slapstick, laugh-a-minute farce your students will expect. But this New York Shakespeare Festival presentation of Winnie's persistent (nagging?) optimism and Willie's growing indifference and despair will supply ample fodder for literary, philosophical, and personal discussions and essays for weeks. Show this play in concert with your students' reading The Audience and the Playwright, and watch your students grow into sophisticated consumers of dramatic entertainment. (Watch their grades and test scores go up too.)