“The Gin Game” – a must see @ The Beacon Theatre, through September 30
Stephanie and Angus Hepburn in “The Gin Game” at The Beacon, through September 30
The Beacon Theatre
445 Main Street, Beacon NY 12508
September 21st to 30th, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM.
Tickets $15.
For more information and how to purchase tickets, thebeacontheatre.org.
In her twilight years, Fonsia Dorsey, a prim and proper elderly woman, enters the Bentley Home for Seniors, a rundown “home for the aged” and is, for a while, saved from melancholy by the crusty charm of Weller Martin. The sardonic Weller cajoles Fonsia into playing a series of gin games on the home’s sun porch. As they seemingly become close companions, much is revealed about their regret-filled lives…to the steady shuffling and playing of cards. Their mutual need for solace is momentarily satisfied until Weller’s pent-up rage and, Fonsia’s subtle needling, build to a terrible confrontation. As portrayed by Beacon’s own talented husband and wife acting team, Stephanie and Angus Hepburn and directed by Thomas de Villiers, “The Gin Game” is an unforgettable theatrical experience.
On October 6, 1977, “The Gin Game”, a Tragi-Comedy in two acts starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy opened on Broadway to rave reviews, garnering four Tony Award nominations: Best Play, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Direction. In 1978, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It continued on Broadway for 516 performances before going on triumphant tours of the United States, England and, the Soviet Union; since then it has been performed in virtually every theatre-going country in the world. In 1997, the play was revived on Broadway, starring Charles Durning and Julie Harris. Once again, “The Gin Game was a stunning success and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Production of a Revival.
D.L Coburn: “We laugh with pity at the vanity of the human will. That is why we laugh at “The Gin Game”. It is the human will that is funny. I simply stayed with the truth of my characters, life supplied the humor. Weller’s rage against outrageous fortune is funny because we have all know such rage, and we know the futility of it. Yet Weller rages on. He may be defeated by Fonsia, but he will defeat God, because it is God who is giving her these cards. His own will be done. And, by that will, the turn of the cards will change, auguring the change in his very fate he so desperately seeks. But, as with any attempt to transcend the limits of this realm, he is doomed. Therein lies the tragic element of the play and, why it now billed properly as a Tragi-Comedy in two acts”.
