A & E

It would be easy for the jaded critic to dismiss the Pittsburgh Public Theater's production of "The Gin Game" as an easy and economical way to fill an open date.

Producing Artistic Director Ted Pappas had hoped to fill this final slot in the 2006-07 season with a newer, more high-profile play.

D.L. Coburn's "The Gin Game," is neither new nor seldom seen.

Since its Broadway debut in 1977, it has been a long-time staple of regional and community theaters. A national tour of the 1997 Broadway revival played in Pittsburgh in February 1999 with Julie Harris and Charles Durning.

With a single, contemporary setting and a cast of two it was probably a wise economic decision in a season that included two world premieres -- one of which was a brand new musical -- plus a big cast Greek classic and an equally big cast classic musical.

But there are rewards to be found in the Public's production of "The Gin Game," beyond its bragging rights as the 1998 winner of The Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The story is deceptively simple.

Two unwilling residents of an assisted living facility squabble, banter and trade information about their lives, past and present, while playing endless hands of gin rummy on the institution's back porch. The female of the pair, Fonsia, irritates the daylights out of Weller with her uncanny winning streak. The irascible, short-tempered Weller expresses his frustration with outbursts of profanity and eruptions both physical and emotional.

But "The Gin Game" is more than 100 minutes of two senior citizens playing cards.

Coburn's play peels away the layers of denial, avoidance and reframing that Fonsia and Weller engage in.

It could be taken as an intimate tragedy -- a cautionary tale about what happens to people who cannot or will not change the script that they have written for their lives.

James Noone's setting is monumental in its decay. The back porch is a towering facade of blistered and peeling paint, encumbered with withered vines and strewn with the discarded detritus of old kitchen chairs, disused gardening equipment and cast-off board games and craft project supplies.

Zach Moore's sound designs and Kirk Bookman's lighting support the play's ever-changing moods while hinting at the activities -- unseen, but often referred to -- that proceed inside the retirement home.

Pappas, the play's director, has lavished much time and talent on bringing this well-paced "The Gin Game" to life, beginning with his casting. Both of the play's actors are accomplished performers who create the small gestures and intonations that turn these two loners into real and specific people you come to care about.

Weller is played by Ross Bickell, who has made frequent appearances in Pittsburgh Public Theater productions that include "RolePlay," , "Arms and the Man," "Romeo and Juliet," "Mary Stuart" and "The Tempest."

Bickell can be properly frightening when necessary. But even when he's spewing and sputtering a blue streak of profanities -- and there's an abundance and variety of them -- he still can be amusing and surprisingly engaging.

Lois Markle, an actress with abundant Broadway and regional credits who makes her Pittsburgh Public Theater debut in the role of Fonsia, is a good, strong match for Weller's tantrum. Deceptively fragile and vulnerable in appearance, she's able to hold her own against his tirades.

Despite their inner resilience, each also reveals a vulnerability and sadness. Ultimately, we bleed for the loneliness they have brought upon themselves and their inability to break free of it.

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