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Thu 10 Oct 2008Many happy days
Living with Beckett and his words for 18 months, in performances from London to Greece to New York to London, forces one to go beyond language to the silence we all must face, writes Fiona Shaw
A WOMAN, "about 50, well-preserved", is how Samuel Beckett suggests Winnie, the heroine of his play Happy Days, should appear. So when the part was proposed to me 18 months ago, I was appalled, thinking at 48 that I was a woman "about 40". It is in these vanities, the gap between our self-preservatory illusions and reality that Beckett's genius captures actor and audience alike.
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