In the program notes for the East Mountain Center for Theatre’s terrific new production of The Gin Game at the Vista Grande Community Center, actor Tim Reardon comments that he is “of an age when there is likely more experiences behind me than in front.” The same is true of the two characters in this drama, Reardon’s Weller Martin and Georgia Athearn’s Fonsia Dorsey (as well as of this reviewer), which, as Reardon says, “brings a certain perspective.”
One of those perspectives is that no matter how isolated and alien a new setting may be, we bring to it all the baggage of our previous lives, something we gradually discover about Weller and Fonsia. Nothing ever really gets left behind, and, despite the faltering memories of old age, nothing is ever really forgotten—or forgiven.
Weller and Fosnia are living in a retirement home where they feel remote from the other residents. Increasing their isolation, both are cut off from friends and family. So they turn to each other to ease their loneliness. Neither likes being in the home, but as Weller says, “You do have to go somewhere.”
The lubrication of their new friendship is the card game gin. But as one game follows another, and as the neophyte Fonsia repeatedly defeats the self-proclaimed expert Weller, the game divides them as much as it unites them.
Neither character is very forthcoming about the past, and it turns out both have much for which to be abashed and ashamed.
Slowly the fate of the cards elicits information about the fate of these two elderly people. Fonsia is apparently shy, hesitant and straight-laced. Weller comes off as loud, protective and self-confident. Of course, as in any good story, appearances are deceptive. However, I don’t want to ruin a good story for you by telling more.
There is an interesting back story behind this play. Cheryl Atkins, the director, saw the original production with Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1978, and decided then that someday she would direct it. She said the board of the East Mountain Center for Theatre was hesitant, perhaps in part because of the play’s sometimes rough language, but she ultimately was so persistent that she persuaded them. Similarly, Athearn saw the original production while she was attending acting school and “determined to play this role someday.”
The current production is the fulfillment of their lifelong wishes.
Athearn and Reardon, both with many plays behind them, exude confidence on the stage, but by contrast Atkins nervously flitted and fretted in the background. “This is my baby,” she confessed “and I can’t help worry.”
Although Reardon does a persuasive and skillful job portraying Weller, the star of the evening is Athearn, who handles a complex, multilayered and shifting role with ease. She convincingly portrays a woman considerably older than she is herself (the character is 71), with all the frailties of an old woman buffeted by a hard life. Slowly, her weaknesses and strengths, the struggles and traumas of her life, emerge, although more often by subtle indirection and inadvertent disclosure than through intentional revelation. “I might be old,” she says, “but I’m not crazy.”
Through the play’s frequent revivals on stage and on television, its two roles have often been played by real life couples, like Cronyn and Tandy, but Atkins said she deliberately chose two actors who did not know each other “so that they could discover each other fresh.” Her strategy seems to have been effective because the pair, unknown to each other when the curtain rises, do discover each other just as real strangers would.
The Gin Game continues at Vista Grande on La Madera Road in Sandia Park with performances Friday, April 11, at 7 p.m., Saturday, April 12, at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday April 13 at 2 p.m. The Saturday performance is a dinner show. For reservations and information call 286-1950 or go to emct.org.
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