Poker has received quite the pop culture treatment over the last week.
A famous opera added some poker scenes to its performance in Miami, and writers purchased the rights to Stu Ungar’s life story for a new limited television series.
Now, the game gets a theatrical turn with Dealer’s Choice returning to the stage at London’s Donmar Warehouse theater. Written by English comedian, playwright, director, actor and screenwriter Patrick Marber, the play revolves around a group of friends who work at a restaurant.
Every Sunday after closing, the staff joins a poker game in the basement. A waiter named Mugsy is trying to score enough cash to open his own restaurant but also has large amounts of debt. He puts his poker mentor into the game to score some cash, and the entire third and final act revolves around the poker game.
Producers describe the play: “Sunday night. Stephen hosts a weekly poker game in the basement of his failing London restaurant. All the usual suspects are there: the chef, the waiters, the errant son … but tonight a stranger has come to play. As the stakes get higher, the game turns savage … now no one’s safe when everything’s on the line.”
The award-winning comedy was written in 1995 and is also set in the mid-1990s. This is the first time the play has been staged at a major theater since 2007, when the cast also included actor and poker pro Ross Boatman, one of the original members of the Hendon Mob who also appeared on Late Night Poker in the early 2000s.
The original production in 1995 won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy and the Writers’ Guild Award for Best West End Play. A production was also staged in 1998 in Los Angeles. So far, the new version has drawn positive reviews from critics.
“What a blisteringly good play Dealer’s Choice is!” What’s On Stage said in a review. “A sharply funny, acutely insightful study of male insecurities, of the toxic relationships between fathers and sons, friends and colleagues, of the impulse to gamble a life on the turn of a card.”
The Times gave the play a similarly positive review, with the poker action standing out and giving viewers a unique look at the game. The reviewer notes: “You’re so close to the action that you’re almost tempted to pull up a chair and start shuffling the cards.”
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