January 22, 1993

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Page 25

Photo by Herbert Ascherman

Entertainment

Scott McPherson's awardwinning play mimics his life

by Kevin Beaney

Black comedy. Comedy-drama. Absurdity mixed with pathos. These are some of the descriptions applied to Scott McPherson's play, Marvin's Room, nowat the Dobama Theatre through February 7.

McPherson lived to see this, his second full-length play, open off-Broadway and enjoy a successful run. It garnered both the 1991-1992 Outer Critics Circle Award and the Drama Desk Award for best off-Broadway play. He died this past November from complications related to AIDS at the age of 33. McPherson, an actor as well as a playwright, was a native of Columbus, Ohio and graduated from Ohio University in 1981.

At the time he wrote Marvin's Room, McPherson was not sick, but he was a caregiver to his lover and to friends who were suffering with AIDS. The play is not. about AIDS at all, but reflects his caregiving experiences and his close association with long-term illness. It is also about the human sensitivity that can shine through any family crisis. And the family in the play seems to have more than their share.

Leading the characters is fortyish Bessie who has given up a life of her own to care for her cancer-and-complications diseased father, Marvin, who has been dying "real slow so I don't miss anything" for 20 years. The title character is never seen except through the distortion of a glass brick wall, frequently moaning or being mesmerized by light reflecting in a mirror. Then there is dotty old Aunt Ruth--Marvin's sister--who is carefree with her physical ailments and thinks that as she gets worse, it will be God teaching her how to "dress without standing up." Currently she has an electronic pain-killing device installed in her brain. Whenever her damaged vertebrae hurt, she turns up the dial which eliminates the pain-and also opens up the garage door.

When the cheerfully suffering Bessie learns from the scatterbrained Doctor Wally that she has leukemia, she starts facing her own fears. One of them is contacting her younger, estranged sister, Lee. We find that Lee, not caring to deal with the hell of her father's and aunt's physical ailments, had left Florida for Ohio where she married and

created her own hell. Her disturbed teenage son, Hank, recently set their house, and much of the block, on fire and is now in a mental hospital. Lee, a cosmetologist, lives mostly on the charity of nuns at the moment, and sees Hank's brooding and unpredictable nature as a constant taunt of defiance towards her. A younger son has withdrawn into books; her husband is long gone. Now this festering, unstable trio must travel to Florida, sure to threaten whatever stability Bessie created.

On the surface, Marvin's Room sounds like a grim play, filled with hopelessness, but it's not. Against the backdrop of hospitals and medication is the dark humor people create to get through depressing situations.、 There are also healthy doses of silliness and slapstick. The bumbling doctor isn't quite sure how to take Bessie's blood, but knows he needs to fill all the vials. Her younger nephew promptly breaks the homecoming's awkward tension by asking if he can "go watch grandpa breathe." Aunt Beth, when not activating garage doors, watches soap operas, getting all dressed up whenever the television show has a wedding. When visiting a nursing home to discuss admitting Marvin, the administrator launches into the absurd "you must pauperize yourself to get him admitted" speech.. A trip to Disney World includes silly conversations that any family would have.

All the while, under the trauma of bone marrow matching, the newly united family members face their own issues. Each emerges as a person; each finds some resolution; walls begin to come down; reconciliation and healing take place. But art imitates life, here; there is no magic cure, no complete resolution.

McPherson's poignant writing sparkles with the little human traits we all take for granted. In describing the work he said "My grandmother was the first 'dying' person I ever knew... her cancer-ridden body resting in the upstairs bedroom where the only TV in the house stood at the foot of her bed. If you wanted to watch Ed Sullivan, and I did, you also had to watch grandmother, commercials and morphine injections coming at regular intervals. It was a situation that, to a child, seemed neither odd nor morbid."

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Jodi Maile and Janet Downs receive a bear hug from Oliver Weihl in Marvin's Room.

The playwright noted in 1991 that "my lover has AIDS. Our friends have AIDS. And we all take care of each other, the less sick caring for the more sick. At times, an unbelievably harsh fate is transcended by a simple act of love, by caring for another.

"By most, we are thought of as 'dying.' But as dying becomes a way of life, the meaning of the word blurs."

Dying is a way of life. McPherson lived it, and described it beautifully in this play. This production at Dobama, directed by Joel Hammer and dedicated to the memory

of Owen Kelly, deserves to be seen. It is superbly cast. Don't be put off by the subject matter; Marvin's Room is zany and will run your emotions through a wringer. But isn't that what live theater is all about?

Performances are Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm; Sunday at 7:30 pm except for February 7 when there is the closing matinee at 2:30 pm (which is audio described, reservation required). Ticket prices are $7 to $10 with student, senior and group discounts. Dobama Theatre is at 1846 Coventry Road. Call 932-6838 for reservations.▼

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