Marvin’s Room
Written by Scott McPherson
Directed by Anne Kauffman
American Airlines Theatre
June 11, 2017
Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.

As an acting teacher there are scenes and monologues that you see a hundred times (as in the “care of the wig” scene) in this play.  After awhile you almost become numb to the scene as it becomes more of an academic exercise then a real story .  . . so it was nice to go back and discover the rich story that is here.

I am not sure if the young students that I took with me could really connect with the gut of this story.  Dealing with chronic, prolonged illness just changes everyone.  More than the patient, the entire house becomes a sick place.  And even more acutely the ones who are the caretakers are sicker than the patients.  This, I pray, is years and years away from the experience of these teenagers.

This play is such a beautiful crafting of all that is painful and all that is downright comical about those who are sick, sicker, and sickest.  Families rub up against each other, family meals – even trips to Disneyland become impossible.  We watch how each other eat potato chips, we monitor the M&Ms that we consume.  We damage and apologize in almost the same breath.

I had wished I had seen this show in a much smaller space.  The living room of the family was simply cavernous and defused much of the dynamics of the story – but blessedly they left the small moment of he play intact.  Humor was gentle and not directed to an audience.  Tears were not flowing with every bit of bad news.  Sisters fought, but in a way you just believed that sisters would fight in meeting in the middle of the night around a refrigerator.

And what other play can say its climax is the silent gift of glass of tap water from a mother to a son?    But next time, let’s move this off-Broadway, please.