After watching Apple Tree's production of The Gin Game, I was struck by the challenges of changing persona. This is a play for two very mature actors - well cast, this means actors in their 70's. If you are sitting close, it really helps that their hands are the hands of 70-somethings. This production did that. I was front row, but current Apple Tree space is basically in the round with two rows. How brave! Hope the theater is recruiting 20-something audience, they need to see this.
Just because we get wrinkley, have veins showing or difficulty in raising a leg to adjust a sock, does NOT mean that life's issues have changed. And let's talk cussing. Wow, the first time a woman says the F-word, if it's this late in life, it has IMPACT. Doesn't mean she didn't think it, hear it, suffer from it. But to say it - this actress really made that experience real.
Anger management gets the real treatment in this piece about two retirement home residents, living in a place neither of them 'planned' for. This guy goes over the top, shouting, throwing, basically doing all the things that aren't allowed in public anymore. Is he a tyrant? I think so, but oh so human, I could be him. And her reaction, she's dominating in terms of winning every card game round they have. Wish it were me winning, but knowing he'll be crazy with irritation each time...what to do. I don't want to be in her shoes because it's clear he will not be gracious.
They talk the middle class game, so how, they reason, did they get the welfare label? Guess what, this isn't the automat where you pays your dollar and you gets your egg salad sandwich. Sometimes stuff just happens to you. It sure does to me and all my friends. I so like these characters, even though they both behave less than perfectly. That's real.
They adopt meeting-each-other personas. And then there is getting-to-know-each-other persona, and then final dreadful, final scene, it's going-to-end-badly persona. How far do we take ourselves in reaching out, trying something uncomfortable?
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