[MAR
99] BELRADE THEATRE PRESS RELEASE
The Gin Game1 - 6 MARCH
1999
The Pulitzer Prize winning play by DL COBURN
Starring Joss Ackland and Dorothy Tutin
A major new production of DL Coburn's Pulitzer prize winning play The Gin Game,
starring Joss Ackland and Dorothy Tutin and directed by Frith Banbury visits The Belgrade
Theatre from Monday 1 - Saturday 6 March.
The Gin Game won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1978 and the Broadway production in
1978 received TONY award nominations for Best Play, Outstanding Performance by an Actor,
Outstanding Director and won the award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress. The 1997
revival on Broadway was TONY nominated for Best Production of a Revival. It has not been
seen in this country since the 1978/9 production with Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy which
was directed by Mike Nichols.
The Gin Game is a finely drawn and sensitive drama set on a sunny porch where Weller
Martin sits playing a game of solitaire. Prim and self righteous Fonsia Dorsey joins him
and they play gin rummy while revealing intimate details of their lives, each revelling in
the others attention. However, when tempers rise over the card game, what looked like
being a rewarding friendship turns into a stinging battle of wills and the game they play
takes a far darker direction.
"a finely drawn and sensitive drama ... Coburn has unfolded one of the most
terrible truths of life and made it reverberate with wit and perception"
Daily Mail
"the laughter... bonds the audience ever more tightly to the performers"
New York Times
The Gin Game will star two of the UK's most renowned classical actors. Joss Ackland and
Dorothy Tutin C.B.E. are internationally recognised for their work on stage, screen and
TV. The list of actors who have worked under the direction of Frith Banbury during his
momentous career reads like a 'Who's Who' of theatre; they include lngrid Bergman, Sybil
Thorndyke, Michael and Vanessa Redgrave, Patricia Routledge, Christopher Reeve, Rex
Harrison and Peggy Ashcroft.
Set designed by Robin Don, costumes designed by Binnie Bowerman, lighting designed by
Peter Mumford, sound designed by Tom Lishman. Production manager is Richard Bullimore.
NOTES
Joss Ackland:
Recent theatre includes Olivier Award winning Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 at the Barbican, Mr
Darling and Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the Barbican, Clarence Darrow in Never The Sinner
(Playhouse Theatre), The Visit Ill and Misalliance (Chichester). He has appeared in
numerous stage musicals including Lock Up Your Daughters (Her Majesty's and the Mermaid),
Jorrocks (Albery), A Little Night Music (Adeiphi), Juan Peron in Evita (Prince Edward),
Peter Pan The Musical (Aldwych).
His numerous television roles include Tinker, Tailor,
Soldier, Spy, Death of a Salesman, The Troubleshooters, When We Are Married, A Killing On
The Exchange, Shroud For A Nightingale, Isaac in The Bible, Sir Burton in Queenie,
Aristotle Onassis in A Woman Named Jackie, Clarence Darrow in Never The Sinner, Geraid
Carmody in Daisies in December, The Captain in Deadly Voyage, Bondachuk in Citizen X,
Cummings in Ashenden for which he received a Cable Ace Award for Best Supporting Actor,
Alan Holly in the BAFTA nominated First And Last for which he received an Emmy nomination
for Best Actor. C S Lewis in Shadowlands for which he won both International Emmy and
BAFTA awards
His extensive film career includes King Arthur in A Kid In
King Arthur's Court, Bill and Ted's Bogus journey, Miracle on 34th Street, Ashenden, Arjen
Rudd in Lethal Weapon 2 with Mel Gibson, Andre Lysenko in Hunt For Red October, Nowhere to
Run, The Palermo Connection, Don Masino in The Sicilian, jock Delves Broughton in White
Mischief, Lord Clare in Firelight, Matisse in Surviving Picasso, Amy Foster and Milk. He
appeared in the movie musicals The Little Prince and The Apple. joss will be seen in the
new film Daisies in December with Jean Simmons released early in 1999.
Dorothy Tutin, CBE
Dorothy Tutin made her first appearance on stage as Princess Margaret of England in The
Thistle and The Rose in 1949. She has appeared with the Bristol Old Vic, The Old Vic the
RSC and National theatre companies.
Theatre includes Rose in The Living Room, Sally Bowles in I
Am A Camera, Saint Joan in Anouiih's The Lark, Dolly in Once More With Feeling, What Every
Woman Knows, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Thursdays Ladies, The Browning Version, A Kind Of
Alaska (all West End), Portrait Of A Queen (Vaudeville Theatre and Broadway), A Month In
The Country (Chichester and West End), The Hollow Grown (Broadway), Rosalind in As You
Like It (Los Angeles), The Deep Blue Sea, After The Lions (Royal Exchange), The Chalk
Garden (Chichester), A Little Night Music (Chichester/Piccadilly Theatre), The Seagull
(Theatr Clywd), After October (Chichester and tour) and, for the Almeida, Henry Vill,
Mountain Language and Party Time. She played Peter Pan for two seasons at the Coliseum,
for the RSC has played Viola, Ophelia, Juliet, Portia, Desdemona and Cressida and for the
National has played Madame Ranyevskaya, Lady Macbeth, Lady Pliant, Lady Fanciful and Genia
Hofreiter in Undiscovered Country. She has won both the Olivier and Evening Standard Best
Actress Awards.
Films include The Importance of being Earnest, The Beggars
Opera, A Tale of Two Cities, Cromwell, Savage Messiah, The Shooting Party, The Great
Kondinsky, Alive and Kicking and recently It Could Be The Lost Time with Joan Plowright.
TV includes South Riding, The Father, Tales of the
Unexpected, La Ronde, Landscape, Life After Death, Goneril to Olivier's Lear in King Lear,
Robin Hood, Evensong, The Yellow Wallpaper, A New Lease of Death, Anglo Saxon Attitudes,
Party Time, Body and Soul, Great Moments in Aviation, Scarlett and Alan Bleasdale's series
jokes Progress with Robert Lindsay and Julie Walters.
MORE INFORMATION: Cath Pitkethly 01203 846 703
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