Love wins out even in the face of death.

• Position: ENTERTAINMENT & LIFESTYLE

Byline: Paul Kolas

COLUMN: THEATER REVIEW

BARRE - Cancer. The word alone seems to inhabit its own private domain of dread. Its tendrils reach out and affect seemingly everyone in some direct or tangential way. Scott McPherson's "Marvin's Room" deflects the mortal coil of its subject matter not with radiation, but a winning cocktail of humor and poignancy.

Director David A. Henshaw captured the play's unique family dynamics in Barre Players' sweetly affirmative production on Friday night. Jane Becker is a fine choice to play Bessie, the selfless Central Florida heroine who is the head of a very ailing household. Her father, Marvin (Chet Lubelczyk), is a bedridden offstage presence, felled by a series of strokes and eaten by cancer. All we hear are his intermittent cries of pain or moans of pleasure at seeing the reflected light bouncing off his bedside lamp from a compact mirror that Bessie uses to entertain him.

Aunt Ruth (Celia Daniels) has electrodes in her brain to numb the pain of collapsed vertebrae. Every time someone hugs her too hard, it sets off the garage door opener. That's one example of the eccentric humor McPherson employs to keep this story from being just another disease of the week cliche. Another is the strangely circuitous, bumbling bedside manner of Dr. Wally (ably played that way by Richard Zuscak), who rules out one symptom after another, including vitamin deficiency, when Bessie pays him a visit to find out why she's not feeling well.

Leukemia being the cause is presented almost as an afterthought, as if all Bessie needs to do is find a bone marrow donor and she'll be as good as new. No melodramatic fanfare here. Enter the heart of the story, a sisterly reunion after 17 years that underscores the dramatic personality differences between Bessie and her long estranged sister Lee (Carolyn Salter).

The best portions of Henshaw's direction derive from the way he successfully illustrates how Bessie's unceasing love for Lee, and Lee's troubled sons Hank (Stephen Keimig) and Charlie (Andrew Velarde), convincingly renews the bond between the sisters and...