Review: The Gin Game (Rebekah Theatre Project)

Review: The Gin Game (Rebekah Theatre Project)

The Gin Game

Written by D.L. Coburn
Directed by James Sparling
at Apollo Theater, 2540 N. Lincoln (map)
thru May 31   | tickets: $25   | more info

Check for half-price tickets


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A fun card game with low stakes

rebekah theater project presents

The Gin Game

Review by Keith Glab

Produced by rebekah theater project in repertory with Dinner With Friends, The Gin Game depicts two new residents of the Bentley Retirement Home who struggle to adapt to their new circumstances.

Weller (Paul Tinsley) has been a Bentley resident for a few months, but has lived in other retirement homes previously. He meets Fonsia (Patricia Tinsley), who has only resided there for a couple of days. The couple shares poor financial situations, a distaste for their new environment, and have both lost touch with their families. Their contrasting personalities dominate their similarities, however, as Fonsia defeats Weller in game after game of gin rummy.

Unsurprisingly, since they have been married for something like 50 years, the two actors display good onstage chemistry. This helps elevate the constant gin playing into something more entertaining than you would expect from two hours of a card game that doesn’t normally qualify as a spectator sport. Paul in particular can elicit a hearty audience laugh or change the tone of the scene with a mere look or vocal nuance when dealing the cards. His critical, stoic, and gruff Weller pairs against Patricia’s vibrant, emotional, and engaging Fonsia to create a lot of interesting by-play. The characters evolve as Weller continues to endure defeat after ignominious defeat.

Interesting by-play alone cannot carry a production, however. The stakes aren’t made clear until the very end, which doesn’t allow for the building of tension. A play that would work better as a 75-minute one-act than as a 110-minute two-act, The Gin Game drags at times with repetitive action, the lack of high stakes, and sloppy tech. At one point the actors undergo an onstage costume change that takes several minutes and serves little purpose other than to show that time has passed. I suppose the intermission does save us from another such ordeal.

The one acting note I have actually proves a touching flaw. At one point, Fonsia has to slap Weller, and Patricia Tinsley absolutely cannot bring herself to do that to her husband of so many years. To say that she holds back doesn’t do the gesture justice; you can actually see her pause, think about this terrible thing she’s compelled to do, and deliver something so soft and slow motion it is almost more caress than slap.

D.L. Coburn’s script is smart and subtle; director James Sparling gets the Tinsleys to evoke their characters’ subtext very well. The material just isn’t edge-of-your-seat stuff, and none of the themes explored leave you ruminating afterwards. Add that to an amateurish feel for the production’s pacing and staging, and The Gin Game plays out as little more than a decent way to spend a couple of hours.

Rating: ★★½

The Gin Game continues through May 31st at Apollo Theater, 2540 N. Lincoln (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays 2pm. Tickets are $25, and are available by phone (773.935.6100) or at the door (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at RebekahTheatreProject.com. (Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes, includes an intermission)