Washington Stage Guild Delivers a Stirring Happy Days at The Undercroft Theatre

Washington Stage Guild, now celebrating its landmark 40th season, is presenting Samuel Beckett's Happy Days at the Undercroft Theatre at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, and the production is a powerful reminder of why Beckett's work endures more than six decades after its 1961 premiere. Directed by Alan Wade, this revival treats the play as something deeply human — a portrait of a marriage, of perseverance, and of the small rituals we cling to when the ground beneath us shifts.

Happy Days presented by Washington Stage Guild at Undercroft Theatre

At the center of the play is Winnie, a middle-aged woman inexplicably buried up to her waist in a mound of scorched earth beneath a blazing sky. Despite her bizarre and increasingly dire predicament, Winnie approaches each day with determined optimism, chattering away about her blessings, rummaging through her black bag of possessions — a toothbrush, a mirror, lipstick, a magnifying glass — and reminiscing about better times. Her husband Willie lies nearby, mostly silent, occasionally grunting or reading aloud a snippet from his newspaper. For Winnie, a day when Willie speaks even a few words qualifies as a happy day.

Lynn Steinmetz brings a distinctive and compelling interpretation to Winnie. Dressed in green with a feathered hat perched jauntily on her head, her Winnie is at once vivacious and heartbreaking. She fills the role with a musicality and rhythm that transforms Beckett's near-monologue into something almost lyrical. Every object she pulls from her bag becomes more than itself in her hands, and every half-remembered quotation — she alludes to Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, and others — carries the weight of a life lived and a mind still searching for meaning. Her performance captures both the manic energy of a woman determined to keep going and the quiet desperation underneath it all.

Matty Griffiths steps into the role of Willie with an understated presence that perfectly complements Steinmetz's Winnie. There is something of the old British music hall about his Willie — a rakish boater hat, a saucy postcard handed over at just the right moment — and the two together convey the unmistakable dynamic of a long-married couple, bound together yet profoundly isolated from one another. Willie is not a talker, and Griffiths makes his rare utterances land with just the right mix of indifference and tenderness.

The production wisely embraces the simplicity that Beckett demanded in staging his work. The scenic design by Megan Holden and lighting by Marianne Meadows are spare and effective, placing the focus squarely on the two performers and the vast emotional landscape between them. The sound design by Marcus Darnley adds a lovely musical dimension to the production, echoing Beckett's own deep love of music.

What makes this Happy Days feel so timely is not any heavy-handed updating but rather its honest presentation of a woman trying to make sense of a world that seems to be swallowing her whole. Beckett's absurdist vision — a woman stuck in a mound of earth, talking her way through each day, clinging to routine and memory — resonates with striking clarity right now. The play asks its questions about human endurance, about what sustains us when the landscape is bleak, and this production trusts the audience enough to sit with those questions rather than rush toward easy answers.

Happy Days runs through February 22, 2026 at The Undercroft Theatre at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC. The show runs approximately 90 minutes with one intermission. Tickets range from $30 to $60 and can be purchased at stageguild.org.