Sappy Days, Indeed Friends

Happy Days is a sappy play, it is not sappy, it is not a play, there is no Fonzie, the show must go on, it can’t go on, the show will go on. The other three Beckett plays we've reviewed in lecture promoted self-reflection alongside a dreary disposition in the characters, yet none of them compare to Winnie’s complete hopelessness she experiences in a distorted marriage; Although, Beckett is able to capture his strongest bond between two ‘real’ people without evoking empty language, and instead turns to stage directions and pausing to convey an undying loyalty incomprehensible to common sense or elementary reasoning.

Most of the play revolves around this mature/elderly woman who has seemingly lost her mind from a meaningless marriage. Winnie & Willie are just your typical couple featuring the overly sentimental housewife who doesn't get out much and the lame husband busily keeping up to date with current affairs, yet such a multitude of broad headlines causes many of this information to be practically useless in expanding Willie’s mind. Both characters have nothing to say, but they also have a great deal to discuss. What exactly does our mind wonder about when it is not being occupied? Perhaps we are afraid of this real our mind contains, or even try consciously and unconsciously to repress some memory. Winnie engulfs her mind’s vortex with the glories of materialistic consumerism since her single purse contains all these vague items. Materials that mask the war we communicate with other and how others communicate with us (The most notable example being cosmetics enhancing beauty). Willie reads the new, but how can he trust something created by biased creators? We can question these tangible items, yet they may begin to question that we wish not to address. These distractions guide us, Winnie, Willie, Beckett, humans in general because stimulation of our minds’ desires assist us in ignoring that one essential question: why the hell are we are?

I feel Beckett answers this question stupendously well at the play’s ‘conclusion.’ There are small murmurs of exchange between Winnie & Willie, but their movement and reactions trigger a strong emotional chord in the reader. I did not arrive to this assumption in my first reading and discovered this powerful exchange in the film version. Beckett’s precise location of pauses and petite facial expressions allow the reader a viewing of “Happy Days” that had and do exist in Winnie & Willie’s relationship. They do not understand one another, but I will take the risk in asserting this is a result of humans being incapable of fully understanding loved ones no matter how well one may know another. These characters speak, but language does not help them understand one another. In silence and observation, the reader and the characters can see a realistic romance for all its worth in its glory and disparity. This play is not a direct to DVD Disney fantasy while being that perfectly idealistic fairy tale in a form relevant to us and attainable for all who seek it.