Battered but Unbowed: How Beckett Speaks to a New Era Adaptations of “Happy Days” and “First Love,” works by the master of existential wheel-spinning, show us how to live in place. Tessa Albertson is a younger-than-usual Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days,” directed by Nico Krell.Credit...via The Wild Project Stuck. Winnie is stuck. So have we all been this past year, far more than usual. “What a curse, mobility!” she says, doing the requisite mental contortions to be OK with her circumstance. In Samuel Beckett’s deep, dark comedy “Happy Days,” Winnie is engulfed in earth — first up to her torso, then up to her neck: grim and grimmer. Still she perseveres, with as much cheer as she can muster.