"Thoughtfully directed by Kauffman; keenly performed by Taylor, Garofalo and especially Weston; a pleasure to watch throughout...But it is somehow, also, fatally mild. How can this be when nothing has been altered?...Without that heightened and emotional context some of the play’s flaws are more evident now...This production of 'Marvin’s Room' languishes in the gap between the powerful, absurdist comedy Mr. Rich saw and the histrionic excess of the three-hanky film."
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"Anne Kauffman’s luminous revival for the Roundabout tends to McPherson’s legacy with grace. She plays down the wildness of the humor, and the first act leans toward placidity. This strategy pays off later, however, as Taylor’s performance—gently weird, shadowed with defeat—takes bloom. Without pushing its virtue too hard, the play movingly depicts a world in which loving others is, as it often has to be, its own reward."
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"The actual interplay between the siblings should be, and is, timeless. But something a little hard to quantify has, in the intervening 25 years, flattened and attenuated this play’s power...Especially in the first act, the play’s emotional grip repeatedly slips away while the banter plays out. The actors are doing a hell of a job trying to hang onto it, though...Even when the jokes go on too long, Taylor, Garofalo, and Celia Weston, as their goofy aunt, absolutely know how to deliver them."
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"Lots of laughs, lots of jerked tears, very little reality. Anne Kauffman, the director, stages the handful of serious scenes in 'Marvin’s Room' with sensitive simplicity and makes the others seem at least possible, if not truly believable...'Marvin’s Room' is a thickly sugared pill, glib and sentimental to a fault...Ms. Garofalo, who is new to the stage, proves to be fully at ease there, enough so that I hope to see her try her hand at a more challenging role."
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"It’s a comedy, of course, and a very funny one...'Marvin’s Room,' exquisitely human and tenderly compassionate, doused with anarchic humor, lives, vibrant as ever, in Anne Kauffman’s wonderful revival...It’s to the credit of everyone involved–these committed actors, the sensitive director and most of all McPherson–that the connections slow to take hold are soldered like emotional strands that throw off sparks as they finally fuse."
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"While the acting is fine, the comedic elements of the story about the intertwining of life and death sometimes feel forced...Anne Kauffman’s staging for the Roundabout, moreover, doesn’t always maximize the material. The pacing is Valium-induced sluggish and the out-of-scale physical production is ill-suited to the intimate goings-on...The script occasionally works too hard for significance, but it also exerts a gentle pull."
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"It’s a good play. Honestly, it’s a good play. This mantra is necessary to keep your faith in 'Marvin’s Room'...Despite decent performances, this lugubrious Broadway revival does his dark comedy no favors...This is an intimate play full of quiet moments that cry out for privacy — or at least a little directorial sensitivity. Exposing its modest scenes on the massive stage of the American Airlines Theater is like tossing a puppy into the ocean and expecting it to swim for its life."
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"Yesterday's clear-eyed reflection on life's blessings and blights can be today's sentimental Lifetime movie manqué in the wrong hands. And director Kauffman's are definitely the wrong hands...'Marvin's Room,' for all its warmly humanistic strengths, is very much a work of its time, and the director seems unable to connect with its particular wavelength, or to navigate its relatively straightforward blueprint...The revival does eventually muster some poignancy...The cast is generally solid."
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