Play: Happy Days

Gosh, a day with only one play in it!

I was delighted to get to go to see Beckett plays two nights in one week, and happily booked a ticket for Happy Days. This, unlike the Beckett trilogy currently showing, does need booking, at least if you want a cheap seat - although there were some empty seats tonight. I couldn't find better value than on the venue website, where the cheapest seats were at the rear of the stalls - which is only about eight rows from the stage - or stools in the gallery. Stalls it was! which makes a change for me.

It's showing in the Young Vic, and, as I discovered, early enough that the limited Tube services running during the strike would still be running by the time I was coming home. Consulting TFL, which is my current transport bible - Google Maps has failed miserably to notice there's a strike on at all - I discovered that the suggested route was to take the Tube to Embankment and walk from there. Or to walk from Embankment to Charing Cross, and get a train from there to Waterloo, which is closer. The weather at lunchtime seemed to favour the option that required less time outside, but it cleared in the afternoon and so the walking option seemed less complicated.

I was lucky enough to get my timing exactly right, and a Tube pulled in shortly after I arrived at the station. Of course, the train indicator was wrong again - the advice is to check the destination stated on the front of the train. Which was the direction I wanted to go in! I was very lucky to get a seat one stop later - the carriage filled to capacity, and after emptying at Victoria, immediately filled up again. At least the fact that some stations are closed meant the journey was faster than usual. The weather was still fine when I emerged, and I set off on my walk - which was researched on Google.

This strike really wakens you to just how many people travel in London every day. I haven't been badly affected, by any means, but on my walk to work this morning was hard pushed to get past the crowds of people at the bus stops. Then a crowded Tube - throngs of people on the bridge as well. Upon leaving the bridge, I was confused as to which route to take - I haven't gone that way before - but had plenty of time, so I followed my nose and it led me right to Waterloo. I travelled in a large convoy of people, many dragging cases. We dodged heavier than usual traffic, just behind the Southbank Centre, and whole fleets of bicycles. Anything to avoid the Tube, eh?

My route took me down Concert Hall Approach, leading to Waterloo Road, past the station, and left at the Old Vic. The Young Vic is just a bit further down that road, on the left. I must say: as well as being cheaper - and, of course, better for you - walking longer distances than usual, as I did this evening, is a terrific way to see how the neighbourhoods join up. I've been to all these locations before, but never realised how close together they were, or what the surroundings were like. You just don't, if you're always taking the Tube to the closest stop.

We queued at the box office in a rather interesting lobby with a mirrored ceiling. I have been here before - last summer was the last time, I believe - but I honestly never noticed that before. Anyway, after a trip to the toilet, and having rejected the idea of a drink because the bar was so crowded, I saw that they were letting people in, so I took my seat.

The bench seating is comfortable enough, but gets kinda sore after an hour or so - the duration of the first act. They're quite high, and the supports of the seats in front provide handy footrests. The view is fine from all seats, and there's plenty of space under the seats for your belongings.

This play concerns a woman of a certain age, buried to her waist in - gravel for this production, can also be sand. Anyway, the point is, she's stuck. She can't get out, and all she can do is play with the contents of her large handbag. A toothbrush, toothpaste, a mirror, a brush and comb, a parasol, a hat. And a gun. Her only companion is her husband, who barely seems to notice her existence, and sits over to the side, reading his newspaper and feeding her titbits of news. She remains determinedly upbeat, insisting that this will be a "happy day". By the second act, things are more desperate. She's now buried up to her neck, and even the limited range of things she could do in Act 1 is now denied her. All she can do is talk, and sing.

Beckett doesn't make it easy for his actors, does he now?

Of course, what all this signifies is a woman's loneliness in marriage, with the encroachment of old age and the loss of her faculties, loss of freedom, desperately trying to make sense of her life while her husband grunts away in the corner with his paper. In Act 2, he emerges from his cave, but it's a futile gesture, and comes too late. A reviewer recently described the woman's role in this play as the pinnacle for an actress, as Hamlet is for a male actor. The whole show rests on the shoulders of the woman who spends the whole show partly buried - including her shoulders, in Act 2. And she is spectacularly good, and that's all you really need to know for this. The klaxon that blares to wake her, to keep her awake, and to tell her when to sleep, is really loud and quite disturbing - and, as it sounds as the house lights go off, and lasts for several seconds in the darkness, it is really disorientating. It's a sensation I enjoyed, but not perhaps to everyone's taste.

Despite what they tell you in the lobby, the whole show, including interval, is just over two hours long. Runs until March 8th. Recommended.

Well, if you count the plays I've seen this week individually, that makes seven already! So it's about time for a film, I reckon. Top of the list for tomorrow is a German coming-of-age comedy called Oh Boy, showing at the ICA. Trailer looks good. Getting there should be easy - as with this evening, I can get a Tube to Embankment and walk - this is an easier walk than the one I had earlier. Getting back, the Tube will be close to finishing and it'll be tricky to get to where I need to be by 11, when they stop running - so TFL advises me to get a bus. There's one that runs from Piccadilly Circus, which is close to the ICA, to Fulham Broadway, which is not too far from home, so that's looking like my best option for now.