"Nothing is funnier than unhappiness ... It's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more."

Those words form the heart, if it can be called such, of Samuel Beckett's Endgame: comedy of despair. Laughter within, around, and against the darkness. The comfort of the familiar, held steadfastly against the oppressive, encroaching unknown.

It's worth noting these words are spoken not from a spotlight, but a garbage can, and from legless Nell to legless Nagg - perched on a can of his own. Their son, Hamm, master of his house, can neither see nor stand, and relies upon the continued obedience of his despisingly loyal servant, Clov - who can barely walk, but cannot sit for the anguish in his legs.

Sound like your kind of show yet? If so, then I encourage you to attend the Tacoma Little Theatre production of Endgame.

If not, then I challenge you to do the same.

Endgame is, in many ways, a perfectly chosen second stage production for TLT. Set against Noises Off, an energetic, large-production farce, full of blatant jokes and a forward-moving plot, Endgame provides a small-scale, thoughtful counterpoint.

But on some level, away from their style and tone, the two plays share a common wavelength: the comedy of failure - an audience witnessing the interplay of order and chaos.

Each cast member of Endgame brings a particular personal quality to the production. Mark Peterson's booming voice brings Hamm the authority of the master, and the ability to soliloquize and narrate with vigor - continuously debating an end for himself while lamenting the end of all else, and crafting a story that cannot finish until he himself does the same.

Joe Kelly's Clov, who simultaneously hates, loves, mocks and obeys his master, Hamm, brings a somewhat off-putting pace to his dialogue interactions with the others, but makes up for this with his physical acting. Clov is the only source of significant motion throughout, weaving between cripples and amputees with a bizarre, hobbling energy and a manic gaze cast about from beginning to end.

Nagg and Nell, legless and bin-bound, are played to bizarre perfection by Michael Dresdner and Jane McKittrick. Dresdner takes a break from various European accents - Mousetrap and You Can't Take It With You at Lakewood Playhouse spring to mind - to endow Nagg with a voice that sounds like he has been living his live in a trash can filled with nothing but sand, sawdust and his own disheveled form.

McKittrick's Nell - in many ways, just like the entire cast - shuffles vaguely deathward, pining for a faintly remembered yesterday, a time when, in counterpoint to her central, brief monologue, she laughed from pure joy at stories heard for the first time.

Endgame is a difficult play. Difficult to produce and difficult to watch. Difficult to understand and difficult to walk away from. Director - and new TLT Assistant Artistic Director - Brie Yost, a PLU alumnus, sets it out for us plainly - to do with as we will.

To paraphrase from Hamm: we're on Earth. There's no cure for that. But we can at least challenge and expand ourselves some while we're here, and Endgame accomplishes a bit of just that.

[Tacoma Little Theatre, Endgame, through April 22, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, $10-$15, 210 N. I St., Tacoma, 253.272.2281]