The Gin Game at John Golden Theatre

The New York Times - Recommended

"...I was glad to discover that Mr. Coburn mostly resists any such patronizing sentimentality. Despite its comic overtones, "The Gin Game" presents a clarifying portrait of the loneliness that may come with age, and the difficulties of forging a relationship when our personalities have quite naturally become calcified by experience. As the moving performances of Mr. Jones and Ms. Tyson bear out, playing the hands we are dealt with equanimity is much easier when we are still sure that there will be many more hands to play."

Hollywood Reporter - Recommended

"...By the standards of most Pulitzer Prize-winning dramas, D.L. Coburn's popular 1976 two-hander about a pair of retirement home residents who banter and bitch away the hours at a card table is so slight it might almost evaporate as it's unfolding. But it would be churlish to be ungrateful for any play that provides the opportunity to admire wily old pros James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson as they spark off one another, and to bask in their highly infectious rapport. Hats off to any actors who can manage seven performances a week at the respective ages of 84 and 90, but the co-stars of The Gin Game are doing it with such verve that the insubstantiality of the vehicle hardly matters."

amNY - Recommended

"...Showing strong chemistry, Jones and Tyson make fine sparring partners. With pitch-perfect delivery, Jones digs into every line with fervor, booming bombast and an endearingly cranky spirit, while Tyson has a warm presence and navigates her character's dramatic moments with aplomb."

NBC New York - Recommended

"..."The Gin Game," it turns out, has little to do with cards. Rather, it examines the narratives we fabricate in order to tolerate the relentless sadness that piles up with passing decades. Weller and Fonsia, as interpreted by Jones and Tyson, seem to have more of that unhappiness than most."

Time Out New York - Recommended

"...D.L. Coburn's play was a hit in 1976, but it's thin as a needle, with a sharp point at the end on which its poignancy relies. Leonard Foglia's revival lacks that sense of purpose in its shape. The age of the actors perhaps makes them slower and cuter than might be ideal; the result is likable but shambling. In gin, after all, having a king and queen in your hand is not enough to win; they need to be built into a sequence. That sense of order is not in these cards."