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Batavia Players present Pulitzer-prize winning play 'The Gin Game'

By Billie Owens

Batavia Players, Inc., presents D.L. Coburn's Pulitzer-prize winning tragicomedy "The Gin Game" at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 7-9 at Harvester 56 Theater.

Seating is reserved. Call ahead -- phone is 343-9721; or buy tickets online at <www.showtix4u.com>. General admission is $10. Students and seniors pay $8.

The two-person, two-act play features Peg Marone and Norm Argulsky.

According to wikipedia, it's about Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey, two elderly residents at a nursing home for senior citizens, who strike up an acquaintance. Neither seems to have any other friends, and they start to enjoy each other's company.

Weller offers to teach Fonsia how to play gin rummy, and they begin playing a series of games that Fonsia always wins. Weller's inability to win a single hand becomes increasingly frustrating to him, while Fonsia becomes increasingly confident.

While playing their games of gin, they engage in lengthy conversations about their families and their lives in the outside world. Gradually, each conversation becomes a battle, much like the ongoing gin games, as each player tries to expose the other's weaknesses, to belittle the other's life, and to humiliate the other thoroughly.

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