Happy Days by Samuel Beckett September 30, 2006

Oleg Liptsin Performs Beckett’s HAPPY DAYS One Night Only Celebrating Beckett’s 100th Anniversary at the Berkeley City Club.

UNESCO Proclaims 2006 “The Year of Beckett” honoring the Irish Nobel Prize Winner.

BERKELEY, Calif. (September 20, 2006) — Visiting actor-director Oleg Liptsin will perform Samuel Beckett's last full-length play, HAPPY DAYS, 8 p. m. Saturday, September 30, at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. Liptsin, using Russian theatrical technique to re-create the style of a Kabuki onnagata (female role played by a man) for the lead character Winnie, will perform an adaptation of the play, which he previewed at Beckett Festivals in Krakow, Poland, and Zurich, Switzerland, earlier this year—heralded as The Year of Beckett by UNESCO to celebrate the Irish Nobel Prizewinner's 100th birthday. The performance is produced by Antares Ensemble (member, International Theatre Ensemble) to benefit the UC Berkeley TAAP Scholarship Fund, sending students with extreme financial need from Oakland and Berkeley to Cal. Suggested donation on a sliding scale: $25-$9 (Theater parking: $5).. Information and advance reservations: 415.531.8454, info@Antaresensemble.org.

"How often have I said, in evil hours, Sing now, Winnie, sing your song, there's nothing else for it." Winnie, a middle-aged woman who says these words to herself, is the triumph of Samuel Beckett's spare, even stark—but always elegant—visionary "minimalism." Often alone onstage, with just the contents of her handbag for props, Winnie optimistically delivers her soliloquy about her life—her "Happy Days"—as she's engulfed deeper and deeper in a mound of earth, accompanied only by her mostly silent (and mostly absent) husband Willie, with his newspaper and his dirty postcards. We learn nothing but the most personal touchstones of the story of her life from Winnie's monologue to no-one . . . nothing, that is, but the essentials, the poetic expression of a naked soul, truly Winnie's Song.

Oleg Liptsin has directed over 40 productions internationally, performing in different parts of the world: Austria , Poland , Germany , France , India , Canada , Russia , Ukraine , US. He began his theatrical career as an actor with Anatoly Vasiliev's " School Of Dramatic Arts " in Moscow , touring the world's capitals and theater festivals. He founded one of the first independent theatre companies on the territory of former Soviet Union - TheaterClub/Kiev hailed as the most interesting experimental avant-garde theatre company in 90s in Ukraine and the International Theatre Ensemble network in 2005. Currently, he directs for Atelier 16 (Kiev), Shelton Theatre (SF), Antares Ensemble (Berkeley) and ITE (Paris), teaches at Theatre and Film University in Kiev, Slavic University in Moscow, acting schools in France and US as well as giving workshops in Michael Chekhov acting technique worldwide.

“Theatre is a game, a liberation. To liberate oneself one needs to have a "distancing", detached position from oneself. And for this reason the mask, as it's established by the great artistic tradition of Kabuki, is enormously helpful and inspiring.” —Oleg Liptsin

Reflecting on the passion of young artists to pursue their dreams, Antares Ensemble has designated the 2006 Berkeley, California production of HAPPY DAYS as a benefit for 'The Achievement Award Program' (TAAP) Scholarship Endowment Fund with the support of the Berkeley-Oakland-Piedmont (BOP) University of California Alumni Club . This grassroots endowment fund provides funding to students with extreme financial need, who have excelled despite significant personal and educational challenges.

Antares is a Berkeley based ensemble and member of International Theatre Ensemble (ITE). The company is committed to theatricalizations of both primitive source material, its non-dramatic artistic realizations, and modern adaptations, as well as what's been inspired by "Myth, Legend, Story"—as the Antares logo reads. Founded in 2005, Antares includes outreach and benefits for dramatic scholarship at the heart of their vision.

"Whenever Beckett wrote for any medium he went straight to the essence of that medium and insodoing he created a number of intensely and uniquely theatrical images and uses of space which are still actually working their way into the general consciousness.”—Barbara Bray

Official Website: http://www.antaresensemble.org