CANNON?BEACH – The Coaster Theatre Playhouse opened its 40th anniversary winter/spring season with the Pulitzer Prize winning drama, The Gin Game, by D.L. Coburn.

The play is directed by Julie Akers and features a cast of two: Pia Shepard, playing Fonsia Dorsey, and Winston Laszlo, playing Weller Martin.

The storyline is deceptively simple: two lonely residents of an old folks home become gin rummy partners and get to know each other while playing cards. But what happens over the course of those card games is anything but simple. The snappy dialog exposes the characters for us, layer by layer in hilarious comic turns alternating with melodramatic scenes that feel somehow painfully familiar.

As Fonsia and Weller play cards with increasingly explosive results, they reel out their life stories to one another a few inches at a time, shining up the dull spots and using creative license to recreate history to make it more palatable. Here we’re witnessing issues of memory and denial, and the place where the two intersect; also begging the question who among us have not shined up a story to impress a new love interest?

The characters, if not exactly likable, are entirely endearing. They are quirky and original and outrageous, and they play off of each other beautifully in a lively, old fashioned ping-pong’ romantic comedy exchange. It is a pleasure to spend the evening in their company. Pia Shepard and Winston Laszlo do a marvelous job in their roles. It is no small feat for two actors alone to carry a play that is almost exclusively dialog.

The costumes are spot-on, and the set design is simple, effective and seamless; it keeps our attention on the characters and the dialog, where it belongs.

This is a Pulitzer Prize winning drama, so it should come as no surprise that as the story progresses, so do the characters’ pathologies. We watch them recreating their personal histories, casting one another in leading roles.

The card game is a handy device for propelling the story along; it is also a metaphor for the things that we humans do, obsessively, with disastrous results, and yet, we’re drawn to repeat the action over and over, regardless of the consequences.

The Gin Game opened on Broadway 35 years ago, and ran for 517 performances. It was directed by Mike Nichols and starred Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn; Jessica Tandy won a Tony Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Fonsia Dorsey in the play.

The Gin Game plays Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 17, 18, 24, 25 at 8 p.m., with 3 p.m. matinees Feb. 19 and 26 at the Coaster Theatre Playhouse.