"The Gin Game" Plays a Winning Hand

As they age, some actors retreat from the stage, citing memory loss, diminished stamina or some other disabling factor. Luckily, neither Cicely Tyson, who will be 91 in December, nor James Earl Jones, who'll turn 85 one month later, has gotten that memo. Because that means theater lovers now have the chance to see these two majestic old lions perform together in the marvelous revival of The Gin Game that opened at the Golden Theatre this week.

D.L.Coburn's two-hander about two lonely people in a nursing home who forge a friendship during a series of card games first played on Broadway in 1977 when I was far too young to think about old age and didn't give The Gin Game a second thought, even though it then starred the husband-and-wife team of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, ran 583 performances and won the Pulitzer Prize.

And even now when the play's themes are hitting much closer to home, I had worried that The Gin Game might be one of those shows that get a kick out of making old people look foolish: unable to handle anything more technologically complicated than a can opener, embarrassingly sex crazed or delusionally daft. But it isn't.

Instead, Coburn has created two full-bodied characters. Weller was a businessman, who lost contact with his kids after a divorce from their mother and lost control of his company after falling out with some partners. Fonsia was an even earlier divorcée who raised her only son alone by working as an apartment house manager but she hasn't seen him in years.

Both find themselves in a second-rate nursing home, aware of their failings, physical and otherwise, unvisited by anyone and yet determined to push on with all the dignity they can muster.

The Gin Game is refreshingly honest about the challenges of aging, from minor annoyances like the patronizing way people treat the elderly to major concerns like the prospect of senility. And yet, it's also genuinely funny. People seated all around me and my friend Ann were having a great time.

The play, which runs for a full two hours, requires its actors to be of a certain age but it also requires them to possess the performing chops of much younger players. Jones and Tyson fit the bill. And the fact that the show fits them equally well is quiet testament to the fact that Shakespeare isn't the only playwright whose work can adapt easily to race-diverse casting.

The stars' professional and personal relationship dates back to the legendary 1961 production of Jean Genet's The Blacks, which also starred Roscoe Lee Browne, Louis Gossett and Maya Angelou. And the old friends, under the guidance of Leonard Foglia's easy direction, bring out the best in one another (click here to read an interview with them done by an old friend of mine).

I've sometimes found Tyson, best known for playing noble and long-suffering women like the real-life abolitionist Harriet Tubman and the fictional former slave Miss Jane Pittman, to be mannered. But here, as in her Tony-winning performance in The Trip to Bountiful two seasons ago, Tyson relaxes into her character, allowing Fonsia to be flirty one moment, flinty the next. She makes it equally easy to see why Weller might be drawn to Fonsia and why Fonsia's son might want to keep his distance from her.

Jones' familiar booming basso voice (familiar to fans of "Star Wars" and CNN alike) sometimes gets in the way of his acting and it almost does in the opening scenes of this play. But once he and Tyson settled into the routine of their card games, he shifts into a more nuanced performance that reveals the years of disappointment and defeat underneath Weller's prickliness.

It is sometimes difficult to tell whether Jones really needs the cane he wields or if the little old lady shuffle Tyson uses to get around the stage is a character trait or a physical necessity. And I'm pretty sure a couple of lines were bungled the night I saw the show. But no matter, these two old masters make old age look truly golden.

Feeling Chilly About "Spring Awakening"

"I dare you to knock a show starring deaf people and a girl in a wheelchair," my husband K said when I got home from the Deaf West Theatre's revival of Spring Awakening that is playing a limited engagement at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre through Jan. 24. 

Well, I don't have the cojones to do that but I do have to say that as great as it is to see those folks onstage (and all the deaf people in the audience too) I wasn't really moved by the production itself.  

And that surprises me because I was totally smitten by the original production that opened in 2006 and won eight Tonys, including Best Musical, the year before I started writing B&Me. I was such a fan of Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater's pop-rock score that I bought the cast album and had it on repeat-play for months.

German playwright Frank Wedekind's 1891 story of teens misunderstood by their parents, confused by the roiling of adolescent hormones and beset with one woe after another touched me. And I was equally seduced by the backstory of how it took Wedekind 15 years to find anyone daring enough to stage a play that dealt sympathetically with homosexuality, masturbation and teen pregnancy.

I also was won over by the perspicacity of the 2006 production's casting folks who gave the nod to the then-fledgling talents of Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, John Gallagher Jr., Gideon Glick and Krysta Rodriguez, who graduates from an ensemble member in that earlier production to an awards-worthy portrayal of the local bad girl Ilse in the current one.

So even though it seemed a bit too soon for a Broadway revival (click here to read about the producer's decision to bring it back), I was intrigued by the new production’s concept of highlighting the miscommunication between the generations by making many of the youngsters deaf and literally unable to speak to their parents or hear them. 

But when I actually saw the show, I found its conceit of having deaf actors sign their dialogue and song lyrics while hearing actors simultaneously speak and sing the same lines to be distracting and to lessen, instead of heighten, the emotion.

Yet, I still admire the skill that, under the taut direction of Michael Arden, went into syncing the two languages. And I also appreciate how Spencer Liff, building on Bill T. Jones' stylized movements for the original production, finds imaginative ways to incorporate American Sign Language into his choreography (click here for a story about how they put it all together).

Those efforts are helped by the casting of the TV actress Camryn Manheim, who learned ASL in college (click here for a Q&A with her) and the veteran deaf actors Marlee Matlin, who won an Oscar for her work in "Children of a Lesser God" (click here to read an interview with her), and Russell Harvard, the heart and soul of the terrific 2012 off-Broadway show Tribes (click here for my review of it), all three making their Broadway debuts. 

And, of course, it's always a pleasure to see—and hear the dulcet voice of—Patrick Page, who shares the adult male roles with Harvard. Several of the young deaf actors, including the lovely Sandra Mae Frank, as the naive Wendla, and Daniel N. Durant as the tormented Moritz, are very good too. 

But my biggest kudos go to Austin P. McKenzie, a charismatic hearing actor with the pretty-boy looks of the young Warren Beatty, who sings wonderfully, does his own signing and, perhaps because he's able to control the role, allowed me to invest a little in the main character of Melchior who most successfully defies the adults.

And then there's that girl in the wheelchair. Her isn't technically a starring role. Ali Stroker, who was paralyzed in a car accident at two and is the first wheelchair bound actor to appear in a Broadway show (click here to read more about her) is a member of the ensemble but the exuberant abandon with which she performs makes her a standout. And I dare anybody to knock that.

"Barbecue" is Tasty But Not Truly Nourishing

Barbecue, the sly satire that opened this week at the Public Theater, is filled with so many surprises that the ushers won't even hand out programs until the intermission. Which makes it a bit difficult for me to talk about the show without spoiling some of its fun.

And there is plenty of fun to be had, particularly in the first act, even though it may not be the kind of humor appreciated by the politically correct, among whose numbers I've been known to be on occasion. But even I couldn't resist the dare-you-not-to-laugh antics that playwright Robert O'Hara has his characters commit.

The play opens in a picnic area in a sylvan park (an eye-catching set by Clint Ramos that's terrifically lit by Jason Lyons). One after another, four of the O'Mallery siblings arrive and it's quickly made clear that they haven't gathered for the titular cookout but for an intervention with their fifth sibling Barbara, a crack head so volatile that they've nicknamed her Zippity Boom.

The real problem, however, is that Barbara's brother and two of her sisters are almost as substance dependent as she is, chugging from a magnum of Jack Daniels, popping pills and indulging in a little recreational blow before their baby sister arrives.

The way they're clothed (hootchie dresses and muscle shirts) and the way they talk (heavy on profanity, light on grammar) mark them as the kind of low-rent clan that people tut-tut at but love to laugh at on reality TV shows. And the fact that we in the theater audience are also laughing at them adds a meta edge of discomfort.

As he showed with his previous comedy Bootycandy (click here for my review of it), O'Hara enjoys playing with society's attitude's toward issues like race and class and he is totally unafraid of employing stereotypes to do it. 

His take on the prejudices that have been embedded in all of us can be brazen and wickedly funny but, also as with Bootycandy, O'Hara has the tendency to stop just short of making his audiences think too hard or feel too uncomfortable by underlining the point that he's just joking around so no one should take offense.

One of Barbecue's biggest surprises comes at the end of its first act and the second, while still entertaining, is more predictable and less sharp. But under the direction of Kent Gash, the 10-member cast, which includes Becky Ann Baker, Tamberla Perry, Samantha Soule and Kim Wayans, never flags. And, for good or ill, the laughs never stop coming.

Crises of Faith Tests the Secular and the Spiritual in "The Christians" and "Believers"

Relations between the worlds of theater and religion have been bad ever since the Puritans shut down London's theaters in 1642. And although the theaters reopened 18 years later with the restoration of Charles II, the wariness has remained so strong that religion has usually been the object of scorn (Inherit the Wind) or satire (The Book of Mormon) in the few shows that dealt with it at all.

But over the last year, I've seen at least half a dozen shows (including Our Lady of Kibeho, Grand Concourse, The Events and even Hand to God) that have taken religion—and its believers—seriously. And now we have two new shows about people grappling with their faith: The Christians, which recently extended its run at Playwrights Horizons through Oct. 25, and The WorkShop Theater Company production of Believers, which runs at the Main Stage Theater until Oct. 17.

The Christians actually takes place in the sanctuary of a modern megachurch with the audience playing the role of the congregation. Set designer Dane Laffrey has created a handsome chancel, complete with a loft for the robed choir that starts things off with a couple of rousing hymns as the pulpit party—which includes Paul, the head pastor; his wife Elizabeth and the associate pastor Joshua—take the stage.

It's an important service because their church is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its founding and the completion of the mortgage payments on its impressive building. But Pastor Paul also has another significant announcement to make: after some reflection, he has come to the conclusion that hell doesn't exist. The rejection of that fundamental belief proceeds to tear the church apart.

The play was written by Lucas Hnath, the son of a seminary-educated mother who considered becoming a minister himself (click here to read more about him). So it's no surprise that Pastor Paul's revelation is reminiscent of the one made by Rob Bell, a charismatic evangelical minister who left his Michigan megachurch after making similar statements a few years ago (click here to read more about him).

Hnath treats all sides of the theological debate with equal respect and the arguments are compelling (would an all-forgiving God really allow people to suffer eternal damnation? can there truly be no difference between minor transgressions and the out-and-out evil of a Hitler or a Pol Pot?) but they're delivered as mini-sermons, spoken through hand-held mics.

And even though the performances, under the quiet direction of Les Waters, are impeccable, particularly Andrew Garman radiating the polished sincerity of a televangelist as Pastor Paul and Larry Powell as the impassioned Joshua who fervently believes that the Bible is the literal word of God, I couldn't help feeling as though I were sitting in a theology class instead of a theater.

The most exciting part of the evening at the performance I attended occurred when the show had to be stopped halfway through because a woman two rows ahead of me had what seemed to be an epileptic attack that eerily caused her to mimic the gestures of someone in the throes of religious ecstasy.

Believers, written by Ken Jaworowski, who has a day job as an editor for The New York Times, is a more modest production but it, too, grapples earnestly with the meaning of faith. 

Its central characters are Donna and Chris, who meet at a Christian college in the 1990s. She's there because she's devout; he because the school offered the most generous scholarship for him to pursue his dream of becoming a painter.

In Merrily We Roll Along fashion, their story flips back and forth between past and present day scenes, as the couple falls in love, marries, wrestles with career choices and endures the anguish of raising a severely handicapped (but never seen) child.

There is, however, nothing prim or prudish about the way the play deals with faith. Donna swears like a sailor and is sexually frisky but still seeks comfort in prayer. Different pairs of actors portray the young and middle-aged Donna and Chris, with Allison Linker particularly winning as the younger woman. 

Meanwhile, both Jaworowski and his director Alex Dmitriev display a respect for the fact that the line between people of faith and those who question it can be thinner than either side thinks. 

But there's a Job-like relentlessness to the pile up bad-news events in the latter part of the couple's life that undermines the dramatic tension and eventually wore me down.

Still, it's a good thing that the walls between church and stage are coming down. Now, the people who create them just need to find a way to make those shows, well, more theatrical.

Turning on the Ghost Light

Alas, other demands on my time have gotten in the way of my ability to do a post today but I'll be back with a new one on Wednesday.  In the meantime, I hope you'll check out some of the new articles from other interesting writers that I've collected in the B&Me magazine on Flipboard, which you can find by clicking here.

A Gala Event to Honor James Earl Jones

The American Theatre Wing’s annual gala is always a great party. Each year, the Wing, the creator of the Tony Awards, selects a beloved person from the theater world to honor and lots of show makers and theater lovers get dressed up and go somewhere swanky (The Plaza Hotel's Grand Ballroom this year) to celebrate him or her. A highlight of each evening is the performances that pay tribute to the honoree’s career and, in the process, entertain the hell out of the rest of us lucky enough to be there.

Of course finding the numbers to do is easier for some honorees than for others. There was no shortage of candidates when Hal Prince (who has produced and directed more than 50 musicals, ranging from The Pajama Game to The Phantom of the Opera) was honored a couple of years ago. Or when Angela Lansbury (who has won Tonys for her iconic performances in shows such as Mame, Gypsy and Sweeney Todd) was the honoree last year. But I was a little worried when I heard that the Wing was honoring James Earl Jones this year. 

There is no question that Jones, a two-time Tony winner who will mark his 20th Broadway performance when he opens next month in The Gin Game opposite Cicely Tyson, deserves the honor but his resume isn’t exactly heavy on musicals and so I wondered what the entertainment would be.

I shouldn’t have doubted the Wing. It’s got a contact list jammed pack with creative folks and they came up with a terrific—and at times moving—evening. It got off to a sensational start when five of the actors who have played Mufasa in the 18-year run of The Lion King, appeared to sing that show's affecting anthem “They Live in You,” acknowledgement that Jones not only first gave voice to the lion patriarch in the 1994 animated film but also helped pioneer the way for African-American and other actors of color to play significant roles on Broadway.

Also on hand to pay homage were Patina Miller, Ruthie Ann Miles, Brandon Victor Dixon and Kerry Butler, who appeared with Jones in the last revival of The Best Man in which no one batted an eye at having a black actor portray a former president of the United States modeled after Harry Truman. 

But the emotional highlight of the evening came when Norm Lewis sang “Bring Him Home” from Les Misérables and dedicated his performance to Kyle Jean-Baptiste, the 21-year-old actor who made history as the first African American to play that show's leading role of Jean-Valjean just a few weeks before he died in an accident this summer.

In between the performances, my husband K and I dined on lamb chops and chatted with our tablemates, who included Steven Boyer, the terrific star of Hand of God, and Robert Creighton, who created and starred in the bio-musical Cagney, which played at the York Theatre this spring. And K, who’d once worked with Jones, went over to the main table to extend his personal congratulations.

At the end of the evening, filmmaker George Lucas, who confided to the audience that he’d chosen Jones over Orson Welles to be the voice of Darth Vader in the “Star Wars” films, and Samuel L. Jackson, whose wife LaTanya Richardson Jackson is on the board of the Wing, gave Jones the commemorative trophy.

Taking the stage, Jones paid tribute to the training he received at the American Theatre Wing’s Professional School back in the ‘50s, which brought the evening around full circle, showing that the Wing has been doing the right thing for decades. 

"The Legend of Georgia McBride" is a Hoot

Sometimes even a serious theatergoer just wants to have fun. At least that's what I was hoping to do when I headed off to see the MCC Theater production of The Legend of Georgia McBride. And that's exactly what I—and, judging by the volume of the laughter—everyone else at the Lucille Lortel Theatre had the night I saw this big-hearted show about a straight guy who finds happiness when he becomes a drag queen.

It's also pretty obvious that playwright Matthew Lopez, the author of The Whipping Man, a dour Civil War drama; and a writer for the overly earnest HBO series "The Newsroom," had a helluva good time when he wrote Georgia McBride.

The show opens as Casey, an Elvis impersonator, is performing his act at a dinky bar on the Florida Panhandle. Casey's got the king's lip snarl and hip swivel down pat but what he doesn't have is a paying audience and so his boss brings in another act, a pair of drag queens named Tracy and Rexy (short for Anorexia Nervosa) and demotes Casey to bartender and general gofer.

The bad news keeps coming. At home, Casey's wife Jo, with whom he's madly in love, tells him that the rent check bounced and that her pregnancy test is positive. So Casey, in desperate need of keeping his job, has little choice when an intoxicated Rexy can't perform one night and he's drafted to replace her.

He's wobbly at first but quickly finds that the high-heel shoes fit. Under Tracy's nurturing tutelage, Casey takes on the drag personae of Georgia McBride and their show begin to pack the bar. Soon Casey's loving the attention he's finally getting and the money he's now earning. The only problem is that he doesn't want Jo to know how he's earning their living or how much he's enjoying what he's doing.

Sprinkled throughout this narrative are full-on numbers from the drag show; what seems to be a "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" homage is deliciously over-the-top. Lopez also supplies a steady stream of belly-laugh-inducing one-liners. And, under the snappy direction of Mike Donahue, all the performances are delightful.

Dave Thomas Brown is particularly appealing as Casey and he and Afton Williamson's Jo make an adorable, and believable, couple. Plus he's a great-looking drag queen.

But it's Matt McGrath who steals the show as the sagacious Tracy, a drag show vet who has learned over the years that you have to grab your joy where and when you can and to temper the joyless times with a wry quip (click here to read a profile of the actor).

You could easily come out of this show, which ends it run Oct. 11, with some thoughts about the changing definitions of manhood in 21st century America whirling around your head. But you're even more likely to walk away, as I did, with a big grin on your face.