The award-winning comic drama Marvin's Room, by the late gay playwright Scott McPherson, isn't a "gay play," per se. The script features no openly gay characters, nor does it explicitly deal with HIV/AIDS like so many other pioneering gay plays of the 1980s and '90s.
But anyone who knows the backstory behind Marvin's Room can forcefully argue why the work deserves to be included in the pantheon of great LGBTQ plays. Audiences can once again see why now that Sandy Shinner is directing a 25th anniversary production of Marvin's Room for Shattered Globe Theatre. As the company's producing artistic director, Shinner was able to gather a starry cast for Marvin's Room that includes Tony Award winner Deanna Dunagan ( August: Osage County ) and Jeff Award nominee Linda Reiter ( The Testament of Mary ).
"I knew Scott shortly after he moved to Chicago in 1981 when he was an actor," said Shinner, noting how she directed McPherson in Victory Gardens Theater productions of Dean Corrin's plays Butler County and Gentrification. McPherson also performed in the area premiere of Larry Kramer's AIDS drama The Normal Heart for Next Theatre in Evanston.
"Scott was a joy to work with. We used to go across the street ( from the former Victory Gardens Theater space on Lincoln Avenue ) to [Potbelly] and have lunch as a cast because he would regale us with stories of his family and things that happened to him," Shinner said. "He clearly had a playwriting voice."
'Till the Fat Lady Sings was McPherson's first full-length play ( first produced by Lifeline Theatre in 1987 ), while the Organic Theater Company staged his early short play Scraped. However, it would be Marvin's Room that would ultimately be McPherson's lasting legacy.
Marvin's Room focuses on Bessie, who has devoted a good portion of her life to being a caretaker of elderly and ill family members. But when Bessie herself is diagnosed with leukemia, she has to reach out to her estranged sister's family for help.
Shinner worked as a dramaturg on Marvin's Room in workshops and for its 1990 Goodman Theatre debut. She learned from Corrin that McPherson merged two separate plays he was working on at the time regarding medical testing and a dysfunctional family taking a Florida vacation into Marvin's Room. But Shinner couldn't exactly pinpoint when McPherson learned about his HIV-positive status in the writing process.
"He wasn't sick at the time, but of course as we know, it was a terrifying diagnosis with dire consequences down the road," Shinner said.
Shinner felt it was so important to reprint McPherson's 1990 program note for the second production of Marvin's Room at Hartford Stage for Shattered Globe. In it, McPherson disclosed that he was serving as a caretaker for his lover, the cartoonist and activist Daniel Sotomayor, who was ill from AIDS.
"It's important to remember the history of AIDS when you talk about Marvin's Room, but this play is also about caregiving—the rewards of looking after other people and how that is a reward in itself," Shinner said. "That is a universal story that affects all of us. So the play will never go out of fashion."
Marvin's Room was showered with critical praise and a couple of Best Play awards when it opened in 1991 at Playwrights Horizons in New York. It later transferred to the off-Broadway Minetta Lane Theatre for a commercial run.
"Scott knew with the reception Marvin's Room got in New York that it was going to live on and that this was going to be a play that would continue on with multiple productions," said Shinner, adding that McPherson was able to finish a screenplay adaptation of Marvin's Room before he passed away from AIDS-related complications in November 1992.
To honor McPherson, both the Goodman Theatre and Victory Gardens Theater created a playwriting award in his name. The film version of Marvin's Room was subsequently released in 1996 with a starry cast that included Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio.
"I also think it's important to talk about how Scott was out there as a gay artist," Shinner said, adding that even though Sotomayor was known for being much more of an activist, McPherson also did his part by being out and open as gay and HIV-positive at a time when there was so much fear and misunderstanding.
"The great thing about the play is that there's joy and hope and sadness and sorrow in the same world," Shinner said. "It's a really delicate balance because it's so moving and also so funny—and that was Scott. It's always grounded, it's always real. The tone of the play is who he was."
Shattered Globe Theatre's 25th anniversary production of Marvin's Room plays from Thursday, Oct. 1, through Saturday, Nov. 14, at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. Previews run through Saturday, Oct. 3, with an official press opening at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4.
The regular run is 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays with 3 p.m. matinees Sundays ( also an added 3 p.m. matinee on Saturday, Nov. 14 ). Preview tickets are $20 and $33 for the regular run. Student and senior discounts are available for select performances. For more information, call 773-975-8150 or visit www.theaterwit.org or www.shatteredglobe.org .
