Broadway Review: The Gin Game with James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson

A Peek at the Deal Life Holds for Us in its Deck of Cards

By Lauren Yarger
It’s just a friendly game of gin rummy. Or is it?

Two residents at a senior home play an innocent Gin Game, but as they reflect on their lives and try to see whether they can support each other in friendship, the real cards being dealt become harder to hold close to the vest in D.L. Coburn’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning play getting a Broadway revival directed by Leonard Foglia.

Weller Martin (James Earl Jones) is not excited to be a resident of a seedy home for the aged (he had wanted to go to a private nursing home) and is happy to find a possible gin rummy partner in Fonsia Dorsey (Cicely Tyson), who also never seems to get any visitors.

Soon Weller is frustrated as Fonsia somehow manages to win every hand, sometimes right after the deal (a duty which Weller keeps as his own, refusing to share dealing with Fonsia as he makes a meticulous, and humorous counting of each card with every deal). Is it beginner’s luck, a divine gift?

At first, he is amused, but eventually, Weller comes to see his constant losing as a metaphor for the bad hand God has dealt him in life. His violent temper is unleashed and the gin game turns into a contest between the two for domination and respect.

Elements of their lives (and its hard knocks – pun intended) are exposed and laid vulnerable as they meet for game after game on the nursing home porch set designed by Riccardo Hernandez, who also does the costumes. David Van Tieghem’s sound design gives us a glimpse of the happy gatherings taking place inside the home, but in which Fonsia and Weller don’t take part, dismissing them as somehow beneath their notice. Failures, disappointments, insecurities and questioning the place of God in their existence are explored and veer the play into the somewhat depressing discarded pile of life.

Jones and Tyson are engaging and have good stage rapport (though some of Foglia’s blocking seems unfocused). The actors follow nicely on the heels of Hume Cronin and Jessica Tandy, who starred in the original Broadway production in 1977 (also at the John Golden Theatre where this current revival plays) and Charles Durning and Julie Harris in the 1997 revival.

The Gin Game deals up some good acting through Jan. 10 at the Golden, 252 West 45th St., NYC. Performances are Tuesday and Thursday at 7 pm; Wednesday at 2 pm; Friday at 8 pm; Saturday at 2 and 8 pm; Sunday at 3 pm (check for schedule and casting changes). Tickets:  $75 - $141: (800) 432-7250; thegingamebroadway.com.

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