Yvonne Armstrong and Steven P. Worthen, Photo by Steve Greenwood
Henriet Bederman and Bob Cohen, Photo by Steve Greenwood
Steven P. Worthen and Yvonne Armstrong, Photo by Steve Greenwood
season 31, show 8, 2007

September 13th - October 31st

The Gin Game

by D.L. Coburn

Directed by Mervin Gilbert

This winner of the 1978 Pulitzer Prize, which originally starred Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn and later revived with Julie Harris and Charles Durning, uses a game as a metaphor for life. Weller Martin is playing solitaire on the porch of a seedy nursing home. Enter Fonsia Dorsey, a prim, self righteous lady. They discover they both dislike the home and enjoy gin rummy so they begin to play and to reveal intimate details of their lives. Fonsia wins every time and their secrets become weapons used against one another. Weller longs for a victory to counter a lifetime of defeats but it doesn't happen. He leaves the stage a broken man and Fonsia realizes her self-righteous rigidity has led to an embittered, lonely old age.