The Gin Game at the Firehouse

Humorous, sad and poignant, The Gin Game (Pulitzer Prize 1978) is a dramatic comedy about a man and a woman, residents of a retirement home, coming to terms with each other, and their lives, through the never-ending games of gin in which they engage. This production of the two-act play will be directed by Tim Diering.

When DL Coburn read the initial favorable reviews of his play back in 1976 he was shocked, even angered, to learn that audience members laughed. He had written this play to be a tragedy -- a tragedy of the human condition that inflicts all of us. Yet, the human condition is both tragic and humorous: ""We laugh with pity at the vanity of the human will"" says Coburn as he quotes Gustave Flaubert, "that is why we laugh at The Gin Game. It is the human will that is funny. I simply stayed with the truth of my characters, life supplied the humor."

In this award-winning play "The card game is a metaphor for fate and how the events of life are dealt to us. We have to play them as they come our way," explains the playwrite. It's a game we can all appreciate.