‘Marvin’s Room’ review
8 / 10
It might be surmised that some quarter century later McPherson's bleak comedy might have lost some of its sting, now that the central metaphor of illness - the ghostly presence of the AIDS crisis - has somewhat abated. But in fact 'Marvin's Room,' seen today in the director Anne Kauffman's delicately hued but big-hearted production, seems as mordantly and ruefully truthful as ever. Maybe more so. As baby boomers struggle with issues of end-of-life care for their parents, and indeed themselves, and health care (mental and physical) has become a defining issue, if not the defining issue, in American political life, 'Marvin's Room' feels even more acute and piercingly funny.
