The Gin Game Revival
Two hours, with one intermission
The Gin Game - 2015 Broadway History , Info & More
John Golden Theatre (Broadway)
252 West 45th St. New York, NY
Weller Martin (James Earl Jones) and Fonsia Dorsey (Cicely Tyson) meet on the porch of their nursing home and strike up a friendship, with Weller teaching Fonsia how to play gin rummy. As they play, they share stories about the lives they led in the outside world. But when Fonsia wins every hand, Weller becomes increasingly frustrated, until their gin games and conversations become a battleground, with each player exposing the other's failures, disappointments and insecurities.
Mr. Jones and Ms. Tyson are sharing a Broadway stage for the first time since 1966, when they appeared in A Hand Is On The Gate at the Longacre Theatre. They also starred in the long-running Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks. They starred opposite each other in the film The River Niger and the TV movie "Heat Wave." Mr. Jones is a two-time Tony Award winner (Fences, The Great White Hope), three-time Emmy Award winner ("Heat Wave," "Gabriel's Fire," "Summer's End") and the recipient of a Grammy Award and an Honorary Academy Award. Ms. Tyson is a Tony Award-winner (The Trip to Bountiful), a three-time Emmy Award winner ("The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," "The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All") and an Academy Award nominee (Sounder).
The Gin Game - 2015 - Broadway Cast
PREVIEW The Gin Game - 2015 - Broadway
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FEATURED REVIEWS FOR The Gin Game
James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson are outstanding in four-star revival of ‘The Gin Game’ on Broadway
8 / 10
There are six aces in the bang-up Broadway revival of 'The Gin Game.' Four of them are in deck of cards used in the play. The other two are Cicely Tyson and James Earl Jones, stage vets whose performances are so natural and thoughtful that it's like watching a couple of seniors eking out their lives, not actors filling out roles...It's not exactly subtle...But the play is satisfying for its own element of surprise. It's not a sunny one-dimensional portrait of codgers in their twilight. The story doesn't shy from harsh truths about getting old and get increasingly dark as Weller's short fuse and instability seals his fate. Under Leonard Foglia's direction, Tyson and Jones hit all the right notes of charming, amusing, ornery and scary.
Jones, Tyson Find Their Golden Years Are Tarnished in Wistful 'Gin Game'
5 / 10
In case the prospect of old age and its frailties doesn't already frighten you, allow me to direct your attention to the lonesome and raw revival of D.L. Coburn's 'The Gin Game'...Nothing in director Leonard Foglia's ('Master Class') update of 'The Gin Game' is stylized...As Weller, a decaying businessman who was outmaneuvered by his partners, Jones wears clothes that are sizes too big, making him seem literally a man smaller than he once was. Jones seethes and seethes as Fonsia wins and wins, building up to a crescendo of ire that terrifies her...Tyson shuffles across the stage like a once-powerful woman not used to having to be careful with her body. It's a perfectly ladylike performance, until it's time to put the screws to her verbally abusive new friend, and then she really lets him have it. Jones and Tyson, it will surprise no one, make for lively sparring partners.
The Gin Game History
Other Productions of The Gin Game
| 1977 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1997 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 2015 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
The Gin Game - 2015 Broadway Awards and Nominations
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Cicely Tyson |
| 2016 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | D.L. Coburn |
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