Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, a celebrated play in which great actresses like Peggy Ashcroft have triumphed, received its Maltese premiere in this year’s Malta Arts Festival with a production by the visiting Llanarth Group at the open-air venue of Couvre Porte in Vittoriosa.

Unfortunately, open-air venues in a Malta town are vulnerable to such intrusions as fireworks, loud music played in private houses or clubs in the neighbourhood and the noise of traffic- Paul Xuereb

This production is part of the Llanarth Group’s Beckett Project, which aims at performing all Beckett’s plays, and the two Vittoriosa performances were in fact a premiere for the group itself as well as for Malta.

Happy Days is virtually a long monologue in two acts, spoken by Winnie (Patricia Boyette), a woman who, for some reason that is never revealed, has been interred up to a little below her armpits in a mound. She has a husband, Willie (Andy Crook), who lives in a burrow at the foot of the mound and spends much of his time beyond Winnie’s vision. Though often addressed by her, Willie speaks very little indeed and is also very partially visible to the audience who just sees the back of his head and his arms as he reads a newspaper.

I suspect that the idea of presenting this production in the open air was not a wise one. Except for the late ones, many of Beckett’s plays were written for a proscenium stage, a stage that makes it easier for the performers to create the claustrophobic atmosphere they need and to bring out the many vocal effects the texts require.

Unfortunately, open-air venues in a Malta town are vulnerable to such intrusions as fireworks, loud music played in private houses or clubs in the neighbourhood and the noise of traffic. I felt sorry for Boyette as she concentrated on making her huge monologue expressive despite the almost continuous sonic intrusions. I understand, however, that the first performance, held on the previous night, was singularly trouble-free. It was truly a pity that I had to view the production on the second night.

Philip Zarrilli and his lighting/set design person, Ann Archbold, have departed from Beckett’s wishes in lighting and in the design of the set. Winnie’s mound in this production is not the fairly smooth expanse of scorched grass Beckett desired, but basically a huge pile of modern garbage – old computer monitors, bicycle wheels, parts of electric fans, and so on.

For Zarrilli the mound symbolises the death of an old technology-based civilisation, and this, together with the decision not to create Beckett’s ‘blazing light’, makes it difficult to understand Winnie’s predicament as she remains helplessly immobile under a desert sun. Winnie’s parasol, which she uses in act one, is an implement she truly needs and not just another prop. The open-air setting must also have made it more difficult to carry out Beckett’s instruction to have the mound backed by an image of unbroken plain and sky receding to meet in the far distance.

As was his wont, Beckett always refused to comment on the meaning or meanings of Happy Days, but it is difficult not to think that the play is partly a comment on marriage, in this case a marriage of two spouses who are incompatible but who basically are fond of each other. On the other hand, it would be simplistic to say that this is what the play is all about.

In the second act Winnie’s interment is now up to her neck, so only her eyes and lips are mobile and her interaction with Willie seems to have become even more tenuous, until the end when Willie crawls out of his hole, “dressed to kill” in the stage direction’s words, and begins to climb up the mound but never gets to the top, remaining just a short distance away from the revolver that lies fairly close to Winnie. She thinks he is approaching her for a romantic purpose and sings a song from The Merry Widow, but stops and stares at Willie as he stares at her before the light comes slowly down on the play.

Does Willie intend to shoot Winnie and then himself, to put them out of their misery? If he does not do so – and the audience will never know – will all we have seen in the two acts be repeated the following day, and forever? At the beginning of the play, Winnie tries to pray, and speaks of a heavenly day, but in act two she says she no longer prays. Her love for Willie is reborn, so maybe she is ready to leave the monotonous ‘heaven’ she has been inhabiting for who knows how long.

Boyette has only just started performing this long and difficult part, a marvellous mixture of the comic and the semi-tragic, speaking non-stop, with occasional long pauses, revealing her stratagems for keeping sane and giving her the illusion at certain moments of actually feeling happy.

When she has been performing it longer, and preferably not in a noisy environment such as Vittoriosa’s, she will surely perform some of the subtleties – expressive and vocal – that now seem to elude her. I also suspect that if in future performances her mound is lower, bringing her down to a level not so far above the audience, she will communicate with her audience rather more. Clearly she is a very skilful actress, and should in time become an outstandingly good Winnie.