Boesman & Lena
Written at a time when protest against apartheid in South Africa was  routinely crushed, this play by the great Athol Fugard brings the sensibility of Beckett'sWaiting for Godotto the horrors of life as a nonperson in a  racially exclusive state. Two ragged wanderers--the bearish Boesman (Danny  Glover) and the wilier Lena (Angela Bassett)--meet on a riverbank, where they  try to scavenge food and firewood in order to survive the night. As they talk,  their bitterness about the ways their lives have gone begins to come out, as  well as the tragedies they've suffered at the hands of a racist government.  Gradually, you realize that they've been husband and wife in a relationship that  has been plundered by the poisonous influence of apartheid, reducing them to a  level in which they have to remind themselves of their own humanity and their  ability to make human connections. Director John Berry has opened it up  somewhat, including flashbacks of the violence that has sundered their lives.  It's grim, tough stuff, marked by extraordinary performances by Glover and  Bassett.--Marshall Fine