Tyson and Jones in 'The Gin Game'

Cicely Tyson and James Earl Jones are acting up a storm in D. L Coburn’s two-hander The Gin Game, featuring a cantankerous couple who meet at a retirement home. The fact that Jones is 84 years old and Tyson turns 91 in December doesn’t matter a bit to them, and it won’t to you, either. Their performances are so vigorous and virtuosic that you won’t give their age a second thought.

A Pulitzer-Prize-winning comedy-drama, The Gin Game has succeeded as a vehicle for two star performers. Married couple Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy premiered it on Broadway in 1977, and Julie Harris and Charles Durning (not married, at least to each other) revived it in 1997. A compact two-hour drama, it’s also been produced throughout the U.S. regional theater network and around the world.

A power struggle between two discarded souls

And now Tyson and Jones are reclaiming the play as if it were written for them. They play Fonsia Dorsey and Weller Martin, reluctant residents in a shabby home for the aged — two discarded souls, previously divorced from others, abandoned by respective families. They meet on the dilapidated back porch, strewn with the refuse of old age (walkers, wheelchair, last month’s newspapers). Weller engages Fonsia in a hand of gin, a game they are to repeat at least six times throughout the two-hour evening. Their light repartee soon degenerates into a power struggle between two lonely souls, both of whom are stubborn, set in their ways, and at the same time desperate for a connection.

The thrill of this Gin Game lies in the dazzling performances of these two stage legends. The script requires them to be on stage nonstop for two hours and to engage in a game that requires no less than 200 card moves and split-second timing. That kind of challenge would be daunting for actors half their age, yet they meet it with aplomb, giving detailed, textured, and deeply moving performances. Jones’s rich, deep baritone booms out like a battle call as he deals: “Play! One, one, two, two, three, three. . . .” His larger-than-life Weller is ornery, curmudgeonly, and prone to violence (he curses nonstop and overturns the card table twice). Tyson may be half his size, but her frail figure belies her steely resolve to stand up to this bully, and she does, beating him in hand after hand. It’s hilarious and at the same time heartbreaking, as the tension mounts and closely guarded, painful secrets are revealed — namely, the truth about Weller’s work and finances, and the real reason that Fonsia’s only son doesn’t come to visit.

Poetry in shuffling motion

Tyson and Jones appeared together six times previously in numerous productions in the early ’60s, but haven’t worked together in 50 years, yet watching them is like attending a master class in great acting. Their pas de deux is effortless, understated, and their technique is seamless. She shuffles across the stage in bedroom slippers, he hobbles around on a cane, and they are poetry in motion.

Tyson and Jones are quintessential role models in dedication and endurance. Retirement is not an option for either, they told Brandon Voss in a recent interview for Playbill. Jones appeared last season in You Can’t Take it With You on Broadway; Tyson won a Tony in 2013 for her performance in The Trip to Bountiful. “It’s work,” says Jones. “This is how I make my living.” And they’re not the only ones. Chita Rivera, age 82, earned a Tony nomination for her appearance in The Visit on Broadway last season. Angela Lansbury won an Olivier in 2015 for her London performance in Blithe Spirit at the age of 89.

As Jones explains, the theater “won’t let you retire. It’s your energy, your life. Before we die, there’s work to be done. I don’t look at death with dread anymore.”