Marvin's Room is a sweet comedy about how people deal with illness and tragedy. It seems like a depressing topic for a play, but it works.

The University Resident Theatre Company's first production this semester is a fairly new piece written by Scott McPherson in 1900. The plot revolves around two deathly ill characters. Marvin is a stroke victim who spends the entire play in a hospital bed in a back bedroom. He has no dialogue and is a shadowy figure behind an opaque wall.

The main action revolves around Bessie, one of Marvin's daughters, played by Yvonne DuQue. She has taken care of him and an elderly aunt for most of her adult life.

But now she has leukemia and has to decide about not only her own care, but caring for Marvin and Aunt Ruth. Through the use of humor, McPherson helps the audience feel closer to the family -- it's like laughing through the pain of life.

Although the members of her family are estranged, Bessie must resolve that conflict to find the bone-marrow donor who can save her life. Most of the play deals with her trying to solve that problem.

Parts of Marvin's Room are good. Some of the characters are realistic, or at least the emotions they convey are real.

Many people have had a desperately ill relative and know how hard it can be to keep life in perspective. The characters in Marvin's Room keep life under control, even if, at times, they are a dysfunctional family.

DuQue does a good job with the role of Bessie. She portrays a woman used to facing other people's deaths and now must face it personally.

Marvin (played by Lowell Manfull, professor emeritus of theatre) is also a strong character.

Although he has no lines, he is reminder of the illnesses that dominate the play.

But the play is not flawless; Bessie's 17-year-old nephew Hank (played by newcomer Daniel Gold) has spent time in a mental institution for setting fire to his family's house. He's a composite Christian Slater character -- filled with teen-age anger and beligerence. Sometimes it works.

Overall, Marvin's Room is a believable look at life and the hold that illness can have on it. It may make you smile -- in spite of the pain.