The Gin Game

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

On an unused dilapidated sun porch of a retirement home, an old man in robe and pajamas shuffles around. Sucking on a cigar, at a card table ready to cave in, he shuffles cards with much more confidence than his legs shuffles his body. An old woman with perfectly coiffed hair emerges from a side door in tears. Thinking no one on the porch, she escaped the confused hubbub from inside.

Jim Hunt and Patty Mintz Figel in Paragon Theatre Company’s production of The Gin Game.

Thus begins D. L. Coburn’s 1978 Pulitzer Prize play The Gin Game produced by Paragon Theatre at their new home in the Crossroads Theatre.

Without any fan fair, this production is an absolute “Must See” because of the spotlight thrust on the forgotten, elderly in our society, because in a run down retirement home it’s OK to allow a sun porch become unused, become a catch all for ÒjunkÓ, let sides of the porch fall apart from loose rusty nails, and ignore the need for a new bright coat of paint. It’s one place less that needs to be cleaned, and picked up, one place less to look for wandering residents. Besides, who there would enjoy a sun porch anyway?

Weller Martin finds solace from the annoying constant entertainment of choirs parading through the home to do a five-minute good deed.

Fonsia Dorsey thinks she can hide her tears of hurt, anguish, shame, and aloneness through the forgotten doorway.

Jim Hunt as Weller and Patty Mintz Figel bring Weller and Fonsia to breath-taking-bittersweet-life in heart grabbing knockout performances. Directed by Warren Sherrill, Paragon proves once again their innate ability to pay attention to detail. Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn may have set the stage on fire at one time with their magnificent performances of Weller and Fonsia, but in the beautiful intimate Crossroads Theatre, it is difficult to imagine their performances could have been any more stunning than that of Hunt and Figel’s. Paragon’s production is that powerful.

Laced with some very funny lines, and deliberate physical humor, poignant tragedy pokes its head around every unused corner it finds.

Cultural shock from the life they once knew to the Home leaves them both vulnerable and unguarded. Weller has only been there a couple of months, Fonsia only three weeks. An uncomfortable moment of compassion on Weller’s part draws on Fonsia’s disorientation. He offers to teach her how to play gin rummy. Family and friends don’t visit. Neither resonates with other residents, but they have each other, simultaneously becoming charming and lethal.

Watching Weller shuffle and deal the cards is hysterical. Here is a master at cards with his own devised technique, and the withdrawn discombobulated woman allowing her to be taught. Except, she has played before.

Game after game she wins. Where once compassion reached out to aid the tearful alone woman, belligerent anger and frustration begin to bubble from the depths of Weller. Fonsia’s shrill cockiness over her wins only baits Weller’s deep-seated temper.

Piece by piece they share their lives, creating stories to cover uncomfortable truths, and the game becomes an obsession for Weller. He has to win one game. He must. The metaphors of the game weave in and out of who these two people are and who they once were. Hard times, bad luck, and stupid mistakes have brought Weller and Fonsia to this time and place in the Spring of 1977. Her lady like Methodist respectability tightens the lid on her being able to express real feelings. His macho bravado screams to win at something one more time. The more frustrating he becomes, the more she is thrust into defining her confidence.

A revealing moment appears in Act II when she coaxes him to dance a favorite waltz with her. The strains of the music float from inside the home. Straightening his jacket, smoothing his hair, taking her in his arms, he nimbly glides around the falling apart porch. A hint of what he once was before life crashed around him peaks through the shadows, and the once prim and proper lady remembers another place, another time.

In Coburn’s grandly written play, just about the time one thinks “no more tragic moments please’ laughable humor sneaks in around the edges.” With each game, slices of their real life peel away and truth stands naked and revealed.

David LaFont designed the magnificent perfect set for Weller and Fonsia and the Crossroads Theatre stage. Jen Orf designed the striking lighting, reflecting the unveiling of these two people. Jarrad Holbrook’s sound design catches attention as it folds neatly into the Gin Game of Life.

Although The Gin Game won the Pulitzer Prize, although stage productions, film, and TV bow to its credence, although it opened on Broadway in 1976, little has changed in the attitude of caring for the elderly who no longer can care for themselves. Attitudes remain about wanting to fit them into a structure rather than mold the structure to fit their needs. Let them find their own way onto a dilapidated sun porch where one can scream for help, but no help comes.

The Gin Game, particularly this magnificent production, raises skillions of questions about growing old, being cared for and warehoused. Following the experience of Paragon’s production, the mind will want to play its own game through the thinking process. It will want to communicate with others for days afterward. Let it.

After the production, go out for coffee, discuss it, let it play out its own hand in its own game of life. Maybe somewhere in the area there’s a falling apart sun porch that needs a few nails and a bright coat of paint.

Whatever, however, call now for reservations. The Gin Game will blow the cobwebs right through the roof.