Endgame April 25, 2008

An always-outstanding favorite of film directors like Spike Lee and the Coen brothers, John Turturro endows one of Beckett's most affecting works with emotional urgency, creating a man who, confined to an old armchair on wheels and unable to see, registers as poignant, deeply sardonic and proud. Directed by Andrei Belgrader, master of comic and absurdist stagecraft, each character -- from Hamm to his recalcitrant manservant Clov, to his ashcan-dwelling parents -- wrestles with cosmic questions. Acutely aware that death is inescapable, they remain divinely valiant in the face of it.