ASU professor brings historic production of 'Happy Days' to Arizona prison

Arizona State University Professor Patrick Bixby and Instructor Lance Graham brought Samuel Beckett’s 1961 play “Happy Days” to an unexpected stage this month: the Arizona State Prison Complex – Perryville.

Following a powerful response to a lecture on the play he delivered there, Bixby organized a production for incarcerated women — marking the first time Beckett’s masterpiece had been performed for that audience.

The play unfolds as a tragicomic monologue delivered by Winnie, a woman trapped waist-deep in a mound of dirt. As Winnie prattles to her husband, she never acknowledges her situation while she explores how to get through one more day, and then another. The New York Times describes it as “one of the most unsettling and unforgettable plays in the modern canon.”

Even though Beckett’s drama has a long and rich history of being performed in carceral settings, such as the landmark production of “Waiting for Godot” by the San Francisco Actor's Workshop at San Quentin Prison in 1957, his masterpiece “Happy Days” had never been performed for incarcerated women — until Bixby recognized the moving opportunity to share the story with the incarcerated women of Perryville.

Having seen Monica Horan (from "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Somebody Feed Phil") and Tim Durkin (from "Only Murders in the Building" and "Scotland, PA"), who star in the play, in another rousing production at the Independent Shakespeare Co. in Los Angeles in 2024, he reached out to Professor Katherine Weiss of California State University, Los Angeles, and was pleased to learn that Horan and Durkin were interested in performing in nontraditional settings for underserved audiences.

On Feb. 6, the production opened at the Irish Cultural Center and McClelland Library, before traveling to Arizona State Prison Complex – Perryville for an audience of 75 women over the course of two performances on Feb. 7 and 8.

“Beckett’s work can be challenging, sometimes harrowing, for audiences, even in the most hospitable of circumstances. Putting on the play not just in prison, but outside under the hot sun, demanded a lot of attention and endurance, but the women were very much up to the task,” Bixby shares.

“In some ways, it was almost as if the play were written for these circumstances, for an audience that deeply understands what it means to go on in harsh conditions with limited resources. In fact, the opening stage directions read ‘expanse of scorched grass … blazing light.’”

The women connected powerfully with the themes of the play, which can be related to their experience of incarceration, personal trauma, complex relationships and the need to endure. During the Q&A that followed each performance, several women shared how the play helped them to gain new perspectives on these experiences and to process them differently. 

Of the experience, Horan shares: “Tim and I are grateful to provide access to this extraordinary play and receive access to this extraordinary audience. When we offer our production of Beckett’s ‘Happy Days’ to students or incarcerated women or men, there is an engagement that is palpable. Particularly with the incarcerated population, there is a deep knowing and resonance with Winnie and Willie’s words and predicament.

"The women in Perryville shared how Winnie’s decision to ‘go on’ is a choice not always easy, or possible, to make. As can only happen in live theater, there was a mutuality, a present exchange, a shared experience. In our time together, before, during and after the performance, I believe we all, actors and audience, felt as Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries would say, moments of ‘cherished belonging.’” 

The production was made possible through local partnerships, including the Irish Cultural Center and McClelland Library, the Consulate General of Ireland in LA, and the ASU Humanities Institute. Next, Horan and Durkin are considering bringing the production to Ireland for a limited run, to other correctional facilities across the country and back to Perryville.