The Gin Game, D. L. Coburn’s 1977 Pulitzer Prize-winner, is having a joyous revival at the Golden Theater—the same theatre where it originally played with Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy under the direction of Mike Nichols. Julie Harris and Charles Durning also starred to acclaim a 1997 revival. Now, the always-great, 84-year-old James Earl Jones and the ever-grand 91-year-old Cicely Tyson have found a perfect vehicle in the show and are playing their roles to the hilt.
In many ways old age is to youth what theater is to life. In the theatre where dramatic events are put on stage with an intensified and magnified vision to produce only that which is intrinsic and essential, fine plays and their players illuminate life rather than recreate it. Advancing years also intensify our idiosyncrasies and bring into sharp relief those oddities and behavioral characteristics that were the bases of our once slightly more modulated personalities. Be assured that Jones and Tyson are pros in full command of their art even as they put their idiosyncratic characters in extra sharp relief.
A ramshackle home for the aged is the place where two elderly people reach out desperately to each other for solace and friendship. In this setting, they become helplessly deadlocked by their own frustrations and insecurities into a vicious and destructive power play. Fonsia (Tyson) and Weller (Jones) are the two forgotten souls who proceed toward an unexpectedly unhappy conclusion to their relationship as a result of their systematic exposing of the other’s weaknesses and fears.
Meeting in the home’s neglected and unused back porch each day to play gin rummy, these prisoners of old age use this battleground for their personal war games. These games become as frightening and menacing as anything the Pentagon could conjure up. More than just a well-written play, The Gin Game is a splendid vehicle for these two exceptional actors who have mastered the art of how to keep us constantly engrossed in a highly charged gin game.
Under the excellent direction of Leonard Foglia, Tyson and Jones create so many entertaining moments with their own wonderfully contrasted personalities that I could never have believed a gin game could be so engrossing. Before Fonsia comes into Weller’s life, Weller has managed to find his peace playing solitaire. He would have rather played gin, but anything was better than being bored by the visiting do-gooders and the other inmates who were either too ill or too uninteresting for him to be bothered.
As Fonsia, Tyson initially affects an unsteady walk, a sense of apprehension and nervousness when she first encounters Weller soon after she has settled in the home. As Weller, Jones is obviously big and imposing figure, but he is also on his best behavior as he loses little time in recruiting Fonsia to duty at the card table. But you also won’t take your eyes of her as she is cornered into the game. Will she be the perfect foil to Weller’s ego? You guessed it. Fonsia wins game after game after game. While she apologizes and demurely at first insists, it’s just beginners’ luck, Heller, who started out with some noble attempts at good sportsmanship, changes his attitude and his cool. Tensions mount as Weller’s bridled restraint becomes more violent in exact ratio to Fonsia’s self-righteousness.
Out of this stressful duel, a strange need and understanding arises between the two that, for a while, looks like it will overcome this constant tug of war.
The mood shifts as Weller and Fonsia reveal their past hurts and bare their souls to each other. But just as in life, their desire to be winners aggravates both Weller’s pent-up fury and Fonsia’s impulse to retaliate against his bullying. Tyson, who won the Tony for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in The Trip to Bountiful, is a pleasure to watch first as a quivering lost soul looking for support when she enters, but then again as she becomes more secure, then slightly arrogant, and finally defiant. I don’t know how many times that Tyson said “gin,” but believe me, you’ll be amazed the variety of ways it can be said. With so many variations on “gin” from Tyson, it was no small feat for Jones to have as many, both comical an angry, reactions to that powerful word.
A multi-Tony winner, Jones showed his flair for comedy in last season’s revival of You Can’t Take It With You and is simply terrific. I’m no expert card-player but both performers brought a whole new meaning to gin rummy and what it takes to play the game of life successfully. Also impressive is Riccardo Hernandez’s set design with its broken down furniture and forgotten relics in a heap suggesting what the old folks in that home have in their future.
