Playing the cards you’re dealt: ‘The Gin Game’ at Florida Rep

Mujahid Abdul-Rashid (Weller) and Sara Morsey (Fonsia) take the stage in “The Gin Game” at Florida Repertory Theatre. JOE DAFELDECKER / COURTESY PHOTOS

Oh God.

Is this what we have to look forward to?

In “The Gin Game,” (at Florida Repertory Theatre through March 10), Weller and Fonsia meet on the sunporch of the Bentley Nursing Home.

Weller (Mujahid Abdul-Rashid) is playing solitaire (and cheating) when Fonsia (Sara Morsey) stumbles upon him.

Weller, eager for company, convinces Fonsia to play Gin Rummy with him. Because she was raised in a strict religious home where card-playing was considered a sin, Weller has to teach her the rules of the game. He mansplains the game with relish, and is abashed when she wins.

Beginner’s luck, he decides.

He keeps insisting on another game, partially because he’s attracted to her, and partially because his ego’s taking a beating and he wants to assert his superiority. (Or what he assumes is his superiority.)

This two-hander by D.L. Coburn — his first play — won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1978. It still holds up, though I would’ve skewed the characters a little older than they are, as people are living longer and are much more vibrant in their 70s.

Ray Recht’s set design (aided by Anne Carncross’s lighting design) shows attention to detail. The sun porch has board games, a walker, garden hoses, flower pots and a watering can.

Weller and Fonsia keep meeting on the sunporch to play gin, and begin dressing up for each other (costumes by Alice Neff ). Fonsia becomes more elegant and beautiful with each successive scene.

As they play, they bond over their dislike of their current circumstances and surroundings. Then they begin talking about what their lives were like before they wound up in this shoddy nursing home where the employees are underpaid and overworked and items disappear from the rooms.

They have found a kindred spirit, each one thinks, someone they can talk to.

According to Weller, the others in the home are either catatonic or constant complainers.

But Weller has a temper and an overwhelming competitive streak, and Fonsia can be a little self-righteous and prissy.

If this were a TV sitcom, the last scene would end with the two of them getting married.

Nancy Stetson

But Coburn has other things in mind. He calls it a tragi-comedy. (I’d consider it a tragedy with comedic overtones.)

Anyone expecting Neil Simon will be disappointed. This is not that kind of play.

Is life a game of luck, or skill? Do we make our own luck?

If you’re dealt a bad hand, what do you do? Can your judgment turn a winning hand into a losing one?

What do you do when your life is reduced to a 10-by-10 room?

“The Gin Game” raises all these questions and more.

Under Maureen Heffernan’s insightful direction, Morsey and Abdul-Rashid are reunited on the stage again. (They previously appeared on Florida Rep’s ArtStage in “Driving Miss Daisy.”) The two play well off of each other, and the three of them working together again is a winning hand.

It’s a complex play for actors, as they actually have to play gin while onstage and react to the cards.

Their scenes are humorous, sad, and, at times, frightening. Abdul-Rashid is comedic in his frustration when he loses to a beginner. (Even worse: a beginner who doesn’t even seem to care if she wins.) He becomes more and more obsessed with this little card game which comes to symbolize so much more.

And Morsey is a joy to watch, even as she rearranges her cards and searches for one she’s absent-mindedly placed between her lips.

The casting also brings out elements the playwright may not have initially intended; Fonsia’s casualness about winning and threats about reporting Weller to the authorities smacks of white privilege.

Ray Recht’s set design (aided by Anne Carncross’s lighting design) is wonderfully atmospheric and specific. His sun porch has board games, a walker, garden hoses, flower pots and a watering can. The paint is peeling on its wooden railings and you can see areas near the screen door where the screening’s been patched. Beyond the sun porch is a lovely garden area with fir trees and an impressive misty mountain view. It’s so inviting you want to spend time sitting on the porch, just taking it all in. (The play doesn’t specify where the nursing home is; it could be anywhere from Oregon to North Carolina.)

Katie Lowe’s sound design rounds out the experience. She gives us everything from Rev. Ike on a TV set to a local choir singing in another room to a thunderstorm.

“The Gin Game” has its moments of levity, but is also very sobering.

Does the way we’ve lived our lives determine how we’ll live its final decades, or can people change?

Gin, Fonsia and Weller demonstrate, it’s not only a game of chance, but of the decisions we make. ¦

In the KNOW

The Gin Game

· When: through March 10

· Where: ArtStage Studio at Florida Repertory Theatre, 2268 Bay St., downtown Fort Myers

· Cost: $65

· Information: 239-332-4488 or www.FloridaRep.org