Until then, I'd only read Happy Days - which Beckett wrote with almost as much stage direction as dialogue, the former at times more absorbing. I was curious to see it unfold, if that is the word, on stage. And on balance, Lantern tackles the piece well. Happy Days asks: What does it mean when there's nothing to say, but we say it at length and repetitively? Much of the play's dialogue is like the stuff we move through daily, when our minds toy with fragments of logic or memory.

The setting for Happy Days could be anywhere, as middle-aged Winnie prattles about nothing in order to feel alive, and attempts to connect with Willie, 10 years her senior. His way of keeping a pulse: wrap his brain around his newspaper. (Not a bad idea.)

The actual setting of Happy Days is a scorched slope of rocks and dirt (richly detailed here by Meghan Jones), and Winnie speaks her lines while standing in a rocky hole. We see her only from mid-tummy up in Act 1. By the time we get to Act 2, she's buried to her chin. Mostly, we see only the rear of Willie's head. They are up to their necks in it.

But in what? Happy Days lacks the nuance and allegorical draw of Waiting for Godot and the hellish vision of oblivion in Endgame - both plays Beckett wrote before Happy Days. Instead of a meaty core, it's filled largely with opaque fluid, in the form of Winnie's streams of banality that never jell into anything. She speaks the play - Willie has a total of 53 words.

Still, I wish we could hear what they are. Brian McCann has to deliver them facing away from the audience, but it's impossible to understand him in Jeff Lorenz' sound design and under David O'Connor's direction. This especially dents the final part, where Willie's single word should be barely audible, but is, in fact, inaudible.

In a play that has virtually no movement, O'Connor's direction is aimed at Winnie's line delivery and her face. As Winnie, Mary Elizabeth Scallen does a bang-up job - by the end of Happy Days, she is permitted to act with only her voice and her face, since we cannot see her body. In this, she excels in employing a full body language with her eyes, nose, and forehead.

Lantern Theater does Happy Days justice, but you're watching performance for its own sake. In the play's cold pessimism, the instant message is that our common mortal destiny is nothingness. We're left with a character whose only purpose is to confirm what we know.

Happy Days

A play by Samuel Beckett, presented by Lantern Theater Company at St. Stephen's Theater, 10th and Ludlow Streets, through Oct. 18. Tickets: $20-$35. Information: 215-829-0395 or www.lanterntheater.org.