Samuel Beckett, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969, regarded Endgame as his most successfully realized play and it has won over audiences in recent productions, hailed by critics as “terrific,” “hilarious,” “spellbinding,” and a “triumph.” In Beckett's stark, yet enigmatic world, comparable to the last stage of a chess match, the king is Hamm, a blind man confined to a chair. Though he can't see or walk, he exercises control over his distorted domain. Hamm's servant is Clov, a constant companion who carries out Hamm's instructions with a mixture of obedience and loathing. The characters are rounded out by Nell and Nagg, Hamm's parents, who poke their heads up from garbage cans set in their assigned place on the 'board.'