Review: HAPPY DAYS at Tmu-na Theater

I am part of the Y generation and the Z generation.
i'm the person who sticks to his smartphone, who sits in coffee shops without end, the vegetarian, who has ADHD. Not ashamed to admit it - this is my generation.
Despite all of all this technological wealth - and, perhaps, because of it - I'm in love with the theater.

Something alive is going on in front of me! Something honest. People - actual flesh and blood - stand before me, playing different people. They try to bring me closer to different situations. That's what fascinates me, especially nowadays, in this time of social detachment.

The theaters need a wake-up call. They need to understand that the days when only the play could keep the audience awake and intrigued in what is happening on stage has passed. Gone are the days where the beautifully flowing words of Samuel Beckett or William Shakespeare, for example, can hold an hour and a half of play.
The theater is not what it used to be! Stop thinking we're still in the nineteen hundreds! These days it's hard to enjoy a play in which there is stagnant lighting, no music, no video art, and no movement on stage throughout the performance.

The play Happy Days, written by Samuel Beckett and presented in Tmu-na Theater, tells the story of Winnie, buried to her waist and unable to move. Behind her is Willi, her husband, who spends his days crawling on all fours and reading "wanted" ads. Winnie finds comfort in a daily routine of gestures, prayer and poetry quotations, and in an endless monologue through which she "passes the day." She is still worried about her husband, but all she wants is for him to change. She believes that, with that, her life will also change.

I must to write that the acting of Ricki Hayut and Avrom Horowitz was charmingly excellent. Hayut conveys an interesting truth and honesty on stage, and playing her role wonderfully.

My problem with the play is perhaps the problem of an entire generation- a generation that is fed up with a theater that is not innovative, a theater that does not break through. A theater that will not use a video-art element to look at past memories. One that fails to use special lighting that will illuminate the actors in a personality-personifying light, or will not use music to magnify their actions and emotions.
I believe that if this play was not so static, it might have attracted hundreds of excited spectators.

Innovation is not a dirty word. And little secret - innovation will not destroy this wonderful play of Beckett's. The play will always remain true to its core, the words themselves will not change - it's a question of where the director will choose to sail in his or her imagination.

Photo Credit: Dan Ben Ari
For tickets and further information, visit Tmu-na Theater

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