Adapted version of Beckett classic opens at the Hora
Samuel Beckett’s «Happy Days,» a classic work in the international theater repertoire, will open at the Hora Theater on Thursday. Running for just 20 performances, the play stars Mina Adamaki as protagonist Winnie and Errikos Litsis as Willie, Winnie’s husband. The play has been translated by Dionysis Kapsalis, while the sets are designed by Mayou Trikerioti. Director Ektoras Lygizos has attempted a radical approach to Beckett’s much-staged drama. The mise-en-scene, in combination with the sets, gives the audience the feeling they are watching a strange reality show. Winnie and Willie are inside what appears to be a recording studio, with glass paneling separating them from the audience. The spectators hear the actors’ voices through microphones, while four cameras that constantly follow the couple transmit the live images on big screens. This new interpretation of «Happy Days» takes the form of an experiment. The middle-aged Winnie is closed inside a room, with her almost silent husband as her only companion. Everything seems to be against her: She cannot move from the waist down, the few objects she has are long out of date and her husband refuses to communicate. In spite of it all, she insists on describing the hell in which they live as «heaven» and on calling her endless monotonous days «happy.» The director and actors present Beckett’s landmark play as the painful punishment of a woman who refuses to call things by their true names, be it due to habit, guilt or social norms. Hora Theater, 20 Amorgou, Kypseli, tel 210.867.3945. Performances take place Wednesdays to Sundays at 9.30 p.m.
