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Revival of local play shows constancy of
death, dying
By Chris Jones | Tribune critic
January 7, 2009 |
"When dying becomes a
way of life," Chicago playwright Scott McPherson wrote in a program
note for a 1990 production of his "Marvin's Room," "the meaning of the
word blurs."
Indeed. And that's both a sad and a weirdly hopeful observation.
McPherson, who died from complications due to AIDS in 1993 when he was
just 33 years old, knew about which he spoke. He'd penned this
play—which went from Chicago all the way to Broadway and
Hollywood—while working at a warehouse in Schaumburg. He didn't get to
write much else. Writing was quickly replaced by illness as the way he
spent his time.
But "Marvin's Room," which I hadn't seen in years before my trip to
West Bryn Mawr last weekend, is a very fine American play, a droll
comedy about the pain and the paraphernalia of death and dying. It had
particular resonance in the height of the era of AIDS, even though the
affliction isn't directly mentioned.
But time has withered neither its power nor its wisdom.
Michael Ryczek's low-budget production for Redtwist Theatre is an
unpretentious affair. Redtwist works in a tiny—although
comfortable—storefront, and this is a big show to shove into such a
shoe box. I wouldn't claim every performance is spot-on. And the
constraints of staging such a show in such a space certainly undermine
some of the requisite styles and rhythms of the piece, which here are
more jagged than would be ideal. Its stakes take a while to rise, and
its spell is sporadic rather than constant.
But you always have
the sense here that Ryczek and his crew understand the heart and pulse
of this special Chicago play especially well.
Thanks mostly to two
very wise and authentic performances from the droll Jan Ellen Graves
(who plays the wise-but-stricken Bessie) and Betty Scott Smith (who
plays her elderly Aunt Ruth), this new little version of "Marvin's
Room" is an uncommonly sweet and moving show.
It is directed with
a compassionate hand with attention paid to the sorrows and the
absurdities of pills, potential transplants, doctors, nurses, goodbyes
and, yes, the love that McPherson understood so much better than almost
any of us.
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reviewed by Justin Hayford |
Scott McPherson's 1990 play--about a
loopily dysfunctional family lurching toward reconciliation in the face
of multiple grave illnesses--is a kind of screwball tearjerker, at such
stylistic odds with itself it requires sustained brilliance to make its
two hours cohere convincingly. Redtwist Theatre's cast are more in tune
with the script's tear-jerking side, often capturing myriad painful
undercurrents in seemingly innocuous familial encounters. Jan Ellen Graves as leukemia-stricken
Bessie and Sam Johnston as her troubled adolescent nephew give
particularly nuanced performances, and their two extended scenes
together are the production's highlights. But director Michael
Ryczek's methodical pacing rarely allows comedic rhythms to develop,
making the script's already forced screwball elements feel heavy and
out of place.
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Recommended
Tom Williams
Date Reviewed: January 2, 2009 |
The
Chicago cult-classic, Marvin’s Room
is enjoying a worthy revival at Redtwist Theatre
Redtwist Theatre opens 2009 with a fine production of the late Scott
McPherson’s cult-classic, Marvin’s
Room. It is a dark comedy about death, dying, loneliness with
absurdist twinges and wild tone shifts. The gallows humor runs from
goofy (as in the wacky incompetent Dr. Wally (Tommy Lee Johnston) to
the weird antics of Aunt Ruth (Betty Scott Smith). Marvin’s Room is
also a poignant drama about the joys of love and the struggles of
living.
Bessie (Jan Ellen
Graves in a nicely understated performance) is the older
daughter living in Florida as the caretaker for her bed-ridden stroke
victim father, Marvin and her aging Aunt Ruth. Bessie has never married
yet is seemingly content to care for her aging family members. Bessie
contracts leukemia which threatens the stability of the household.
Bessie contacts her estranged sister, Lee (Karen Hill) to find out if
she or her two sons are a match for a bone marrow transplant she
desperately need. Lee is a nasty, selfish woman mad at her sons and the
world. Hank (Sam Johnston) is the 17-year-old son now in a mental
institute because he burned down his own home. Charlie (Evan
Kedjidjian) is the younger brother who reads too much.
Lee and her boys travel from Ohio to Florida to help Bessie and the
family. Bessie bonds with Hank and the two sisters reach a truce and
eventually an understanding about helping one another as well as coping
with the inevitability of death to key family members. This well performed show has spurts of
black humor, some wacky scenes and poignant moments of clarity on the
dynamics of love, companionship and loneliness. Completely free from
sentimentality, morbidity and predictability, Marvin’s Room offers a fresh
perspective on mortality, self-acceptance and the nature of love.
Bessie is a most noble, yet frail character who is emotionally honest
and truthful. Jan Ellen Graves is
excellent as Bessie capturing her vulnerability and strength of
character. Sam Johnston, Betty Scott Smith and Karen Hill also offered
terrific performances. While I have some concerns about the wild
shifting tone that went from absurdist to emotionally wrenching and
back again, Marvin’s Room
ultimately is a most truthful insight into the nature of love, dying
and self-acceptance. A quicker pace and faster scene changes would
help. Filled with wacky characters
placed in strange situations, Marvin’s Room will make you laugh as well as tug at your
heart strings. It is definitely worth seeing.
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The Edgewater
Theater Scene: Unforgettable and Affordable Drama
By Laurie Grauer |
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Sorry folks, but
singer and song writer Ms. Petula Clark had it all
wrong. As far as this theater critic is concerned, the only things
awaiting you “Downtown” are hiked-up parking fees, over-priced
Broadway-style merchandise, and traffic jams galore.
If, however, you’d like to see some great local theater without having
to take out a second mortgage to pay for the ticket, head on over to
Bryn Mawr Avenue, where two unforgettable theater experiences are mere
blocks away from the Red Line platform.
Redtwist Theatre’s
“Marvin’s Room”
By Laurie Grauer, Reviewed December 30, 2008
Age, illness, death, and the American health-care system – discussing
them won’t exactly make you the life of a cocktail party. They are,
however, important issues in today’s society; perhaps more so now than
only a few generations prior.
How would you approach the declining health of a loved one? What
sacrifices would you be willing to make in order to ensure this
cherished individual was able to live out his or her life with dignity?
Would these still be sacrifices if you gained something greater in
return?
Redtwist Theatre’s Marvin’s Room
explores these questions as it presents a heartfelt story of a family
brought together, rather than torn apart, by disease.
Marvin, who is the victim of a stroke that left him bed-ridden, is
cared for by his daughter Bessie in Florida. His younger daughter Lee
moved to Ohio with her husband 20 years prior and has remained
estranged ever since. Once Bessie learns she has Leukemia and needs a
bone-marrow transplant, however, she turns to Lee, along with her two
sons Hank and Charlie, for help.
As the story unfolds, we meet an absent-minded Dr. Wally, a child-like
but endearing Aunt Ruth, and a host of wincingly realistic health-care
“professionals.”
Written by the late Chicago playwright Scott McPherson, Marvin’s Room
first premiered in our city in 1991 before moving to Broadway and the
silver screen in 1996. Since then, this theatrical hit has been retold
across the nation countless times, and each revival renews the play’s
poignancy and spirit. This latest production is no exception.
Artistic Director and Redtwist Theatre’s founder Michael Colucci worked
with Scott McPherson when they both started their careers at Victory
Gardens. He takes special care in bringing his colleague’s work back to
life, and it shows.
Despite the
theater’s cozy size, set
designer Kevin Durnbaugh and costume designer Erin Fast do a wonderful
job transitioning the characters from the doctor’s office, to their
home, retirement centers, and even Disney World.
As this is only the beginning of the show’s run, some of the members of
director Michael Ryczek’s cast still need time to grow into their
roles, but they all show tremendous promise.
Jan Ellen Graves
downplays the character of Bessie in the first act. Her counterpart Karen Hill
overacts a bit in bringing to life the flaky and free-spirited sister
Lee. Again, these two-dimensional portrayals could be due in part to
the newness of the roles for the actresses, as well as the way the
script presents the two sisters.
However, in the second act both
actresses give dynamite performances as they depict each character’s
emotional transformations over the course of the show.
Eighteen-year-old
Sam Johnston shows great promise as well in playing Hank,
the eldest son who in the first act is committed to a mental
institution for burning down his mother’s house (Did I forget to
mention that? Silly me). Although he plays the the brooding side of the
teenager quite well, he still needs time to transition more adequately
into the more tender aspects of Hank’s character.
Evan Kedjidjian, who
plays Charlie, is
only 12 and yet has the comedic timing of an old pro. Finally, Betty
Scott Smith is an absolute delight to watch as Aunt Ruth. I cannot tell
you the number of times she made me laugh so hard that I had to cover
my mouth to stifle my giggles (and if you ask those who know me well, I
hardly ever attempt to stifle my own voice).
The play has some rough edges that need to be worked out, but these are
minor and I’m sure things will run smoothly long before the end of the
run. Go see Marvin’s Room while there are still tickets to be had!
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Recommended
by Ruth Smerling
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MARVIN’S ROOM AT THE REDTWIST – IS THERE
COMEDY IN DEATH?
It doesn’t matter how rich a person is, how talented, how
beautiful. Every single living being on God’s green earth is
terminal. Don’t let those rosy cheeks fool you. You can’t
cheat the grim reaper by giving up high cholesterol foods and
cigarettes, but you’ll smell better. Nevertheless, one day,
without warning, for no good reason, it’s all over. Fortunately,
we can watch an episode of Entourage or eat a pint of Haagen Das ice
cream to still the panic and we go on with what we believe are lives
filled with meaning and direction and we believe that we matter greatly
to the people in our lives.
Playwright Scott McPherson came to grips with his mortality at an early
age after being diagnosed with AIDS. Instead of worrying about
his death and feeling sorry for himself, he sat down at the computer
and created a work filled with humor about a good soul singled out by
the cruel forces of nature to leave this planet. The critically
acclaimed Marvin’s Room, was produced in Chicago and soon traveled to
Broadway and was later made into a movie starring Diane Keaton and
Meryl Streep. Marvin’s Room is not about the AIDS virus that
claimed Scott McPherson, but it is about an innocent woman who did
nothing but good her entire life that is told her life may come to an
end sooner than she had anticipated. From that moment on, she is
constantly on her guard, trying steal a few more minut es, hoping to
enlist as many people as she can in her fight against the inevitable,
hoping to win some kind of peace.
Jan Graves is the victim, Bessie. Bessie is a far cry from the
usual angry, righteous and people of authority she usually plays.
Bessie is a sweet woman bound to her aging and dying family by a sense
of duty. She has devoted her life to taking care of her dying
father who is bedridden with colon cancer. He can barely speak,
but shrieks at all hours of the day. Like a mother and infant,
Bessie knows just what he needs. She also cares for her aging and
forgetful Aunt Ruth, played by the very distinguished and fiery Betty
Scott Smith. Aunt Ruth is a sweetheart, but left alone may set
the house on fire accidentally.
Bessie is forced to accept a diagnosis of leukemia from Dr. Wally
(Tommy Lee Johnston) a walking comedy of errors who stabs her for blood
so many times she comes home looking like a pin cushion. When the
verdict is in, and she’s positive for leukemia, she has to contact her
estranged sister, Lee (Karen Hill). While Bessie stayed to look
after the family, Lee left to pursue her dreams only to be rudely
awakened when her Prince on a motorcycle left her with two young boys
to take care of. Lee is glad to help and so is her young son
Charlie (Evan Kedjidjian), but Hank (Sam Johnston), incarcerated in a
mental hospital for setting the house on fire, is not so easy to
persuade.
Despite their guilt, anger and disdain, every member of the family
merge to share the strengths they have with each other. Marvin’s
Room is a beautifully written story about people with shattered dreams
and no sense of direction who forget their petty differences and become
transformed when they assemble to do everything they can to help a
loved one.&nb sp;
Director Michael Ryczek creates a warm, realistic family environment
with people forced to react and adapt their humdrum routines around
everyone else’s troubles. Costume designer Erin Fast seems to
have left Bessie’s costuming alone with the wardrobe a little more Jan
Graves than Bessie. Lighting is choppy and out of synch creating
confusion with the stage blacking out for a long moment and the
audience not knowing whether the lights will ever go back on.
Despite a few technical quirks, Marvin’s Room is a heartwarming story
that jabs at something we all shudder over from time to time even
though we try not to worry about it until we have to.
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BY MARY SHEN
BARNIDGE |
Scott McPherson’s look at “dying as a way
of life” opens with two people well on their way to that final
departure—an elderly spinster and her bedridden brother, the latter of
whom we meet only as a series of offstage coughs, grunts and
whimpers—along with their caretaker, Bessie, who has just learned that
she may have contracted leukemia. The search for a bone-marrow donor
brings her estranged sister home, accompanied by two young sons. Lee
and Charley currently live in a shelter, a consequence of teenage Hank
torching the family house, for which he has been incarcerated in a
mental institution.
In 1992, there was little doubt as to where our sentiments should lie:
Bessie stoutly declares her lifelong devotion to her impaired elders to
be all the fulfillment she desires, while Lee’s flight from an
environment centered upon disease and death (with even characters
figuring only in passing anecdotes dying untimely) manifesting itself
in one destructive choice after another. But if every cripple finds its
crutch, and vice versa, could not Bessie’s self-sacrifice also have
been fueled by an unwillingness to shoulder the risks of adulthood? And
could Lee have made more of her independence without the burden of
guilt over her “selfishness?”
The cast assembled
by director Michael Ryczek for this Redtwist Theatre production conveys
with vivid intimacy the challenges represented by McPherson’s three
generations of flawed human beings facing their ultimate fate, while
never neglecting the text’s considerable humor— Aunt Ruth’s
implanted electronic device, for example, or a scene at Disney World
where Bessie faints and is rescued by a strolling Goofycostumed actor.
Seventeen years after the epidemic that claimed the life of its author,
it would be simple to view Marvin’s Room solely as social propaganda
connected with AIDS’ early years, its emotions heavily weighted toward
a single directive. But in 2009, its milieu can just as reasonably be
perceived as a caveat on the American medical-industrial complex and
its reliance on profit-motivated technology. (The perimeter of
Redtwist’s storefront auditorium is decorated by hundreds—hundreds!—of
prescription-labeled vials. How many convalescent-home dumpsters
supplied the scenic designer and property crew this hoard of discarded
pharmaceuticals?) If McPherson’s legacy sends us home with no other
lesson, it is that comfort in our last days will come, not from
overworked doctors or smug bureaucrats, but from human resources—that’s
you and me, by the way—whether of the hands-on or the support-from-afar
variety.
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Family
ties prevail in this drama about reuniting.
Centerstage Show Review
Reviewer: Sarah Terez Rosenblum
Tuesday Jan 06, 2009 |
Having seen a number of plays at blackbox
theater, Redtwist, I’ve grown to anticipate their novel use of a
circumscribed space. In staging Scott
McPherson’s black comedy, "Marvin’s Room", the company doesn’t
disappoint. Opening as Bessie (a bland Jan Ellen Graves)
receives a Lymphoma diagnosis, the play offers a picture of a brave
woman who’s spent a decade taking care of her crippled aunt (a compelling Betty Scott Smith), and
her ailing father, Marvin. When Bessie’s estranged sister (Karen Hill)
shows up, dragging her two sons, the older of whom (Sam Johnson,
unconvincing in his portrayal of a seventeen-year-old) has been
institutionalized for burning down their house, Bessie forges an
unlikely friendship with her lithium-fogged nephew. Lining the walls
with medicine bottles, making use of the theater’s center aisle,
setting scenes behind the audience and on the stage proper, director
Michael Ryczek crafts an intimate, almost interactive piece. The inclusion of the audience is an apt,
poignant choice given the play’s thematic threads: death, love,
courage, acceptance and universal matters.
McPherson created "Marvin’s Room" while his lover and many friends were
dying of AIDS. He himself succumbed several years later as the play, a
Chicago cult-classic, opened on Broadway. The play’s content has, on
the surface, no relationship to AIDS; however death, care-taking and
faith were obviously on McPherson’s mind as he wrote. Though the
playwright’s tragic back-story and the show’s meteoric rise provide
interesting background, even combined with inspired staging and classic
themes, these variables do not elevate the play itself. "Marvin’s Room"
serves up unpalatable melancholy with a side of off-beat humor, a
quirky, attention-grabbing combination surely, but ultimately
off-putting and awkward.
According to the program, in stuffing his play with diseases both
physical and mental, McPherson means to tell us something about the
“healing powers of love.” Instead he delivers a litany of woes that
offer no ultimate redemption. One is left wondering only just how one
family could come to be so unlucky.
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A Comedy About
Serious Stuff
by erica speaks
Marvin’s Room is a must-see
Redtwist Theatre is at it again. . . . Their production of Scott
McPherson’s play, Marvin’s Room, opened last weekend and will – for
sure – be added to their long list of Jeff-Recommended shows. Formerly
known as the Actors Workshop, this gem of a theater company has been
around since 1994, producing some “white hot drama, in a tiny black
box, with a little red twist” for quite some time. Their current production is no exception to
the white hot, red twist rule.
Marvin’s Room
is a story about death, about life and about forgiveness. Director
Michael Ryczek laughs, “Oh, did I mention it’s also a comedy?” Indeed
it is. The actors skillfully capture the heart and humor of one of
life’s most delicate topics: cancer. Exceptional, noteworthy
performances include: Sam Johnston
(who hauntingly portrays the teenage, angst-ridden son, Hank), Betty
Scott Smith (as the adorable and enchanting Aunt Ruth), Tommy Lee
Johnston (embodying Dr. Wally with excellent comedic timing) and Jan
Ellen Graves (who’s grace and gentle demeanor as Bessie was the charm
of the show).
Also worth mentioning is the creative
set design by Northwestern graduate, Kevin Durnbaugh. Though the
stage at Redtwist Theatre is very small and the set was somewhat bare
boned, Kevin’s use of the space was right on. There was the main stage
in the front (where most of the action took place), but there was also
a stage of sorts – if you will - behind the audience (which served as
the unseen room of the ailing father). Brilliantly connecting the two
spaces were two long sets of ‘windows’, bordering each side of the
audience. Perhaps the most jarring and dramatic aspect of these
‘windows’ was the 300 pill bottles lining them. The audience, in
essence, served as a hallway between the two rooms. Pretty cool, huh?
Marvin’s Room is a
must-see – death, life and
forgiveness included.
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