Review: TAP'S Tender THE GIN GAME Knocks on a Tragic Battle Of Cards and Wills

Knock on the card table and the Gin player who does so wins the game if ten points or less remain in their hand. Knock on Third Avenue Playhouse's door in Sturgeon Bay to appreciate their new production of the 1977 Pulitzer Prize wining play The Gin Game. In this fascinating battle of wills and wits, Weller and Fonsia fight for their dignity in a dilapidated nursing home, where the nurses condescend to their charges and the Methodist church choir continually sings to entertain them.

Playwright D.L. Coburn regarded his play primarily as a tragedy, yet under the expert direction of Co-Artistic Director Robert Boles, humor lightens up the last years of Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey's lives. Boles centers on the lighter moments of aging and companionship while the pair's continual gin games descend into darker territory, Through the extraordinary talents of 2016 Artist in Residence Drew Brhel's Weller and Claire Morkin's Fonsia, these actor's facial expressions and gestures belie priceless emotional wealth to a story centered primarily around a card table placed on a covered porch. Music such as "You Make Me Feel So Young," played during the performance adds an upbeat tempo while also creating tension between the production's characters in their sunset years-deserted by their families and both divorced, their foreseeable horizons limited.

Brhel and Morkin capture palpable chemistry on stage, connecting to the intimate audience, many in those seats who might be of a similar age as these characters. Weller and Fonsia's tempers clash and ultimately explode after this man meets his match in a woman who keeps winning at cards, Gin. Still, a tenderness remains between Weller and Fonsia to soften those blows. With credit to Boles, Brhel and Morkin, the more these actors emotionally connect, the more humiliation for each other surfaces and heighten the Coburn's tragedy amid their growing fondness for each other.. Fonsia cracks her formal Presbyterian prudishness against Weller's explosive language and temper, which borders on abuse. After which the pair's deepest insecurities and truths regarding their lives rise to the surface merely while playing a game of cards, until they almost destroy each other.

As in Gin, the play knocks furiously at the audience's consideration for the need of family and friends throughout life., and asks what health or money will be left for their final days? These two lonely residents, displaced from their families, find some solace in each other, even when fighting over Gin. In one scene, Weller places his sweater over Fonsia's shoulders which attests to the life-long need for affection at all ages.

Coburn's play also peeks into how America deals with aging because contemporary attitudes hold scant reverence for lives hard or well-lived especially those with glorious imperfections, as with Weller and Fonsia. When will these attitudes change while America's population soars for those 65 and older in the coming years, with many of these individuals single due to deaths, divorces or families being spread across the country instead of staying in one place to care for each other?. What will become of these individuals as the country ages and greys? In Door County alone, almost 85 percent of the year round population is over 65.

Despite any individual's personal dreams and plans, what his/her wills for their life, Weller's card playing experience symbolically demonstrates that divine intervention can change what ultimately happens. Weller attributes Fonsia's consistent winning to God's will that dooms his frustrations and losses. They begin to battle for control over instead of compassion for each other. Is is God's will or a person unwillingness to forgive or forget the past or forge new pathways in any future stage of life the dooming force? Either way, what a person says and how he plays life's game can change the outcome of any interaction...and what the audience might contemplate well after attending this outstanding performance.

Which brings this back to knocking on Third Avenue Playhouse's doors...knocking on this door is, despite the pun, tapping into an eclectic mix of professional productions that will challenge the heart, mind an soul, continually upping the stakes in theater as in any card game. A place where the audience wins every season of the year. TAP's tender, funny and also humanly tragic The Gin Game connects to people of all ages. Reminds audiences each person grows older by the minute and how they spend those minutes and who with becomes continually precious.

Third Avenue Playhouse presents The Gin Game in Historic Downtown Sturgeon Bay, 238 North Third Avenue, through October 16. For tickets or information, please call: 920.763.1760 or visit: www.thirdavnueplayhosue.com

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