The summary on the back of the play says this. "Marvin's Room, Scott McPherson's dark and mordantly funny comedy about one woman's commitment to caring for her family first, even in the face of personal tragedy, is unquestioningly one of the most beloved, critically acclaimed, and significant new plays that the off-Broadway season has seen in years." It is dificult to summarize this play. That it is a comedy and yet deals with very real issues, doesn't come across when you do a listing of the events.

Bessie is a forty-year old woman living in Florida with her father and her aunt. She has been their caretaker since her father's stroke twenty years before. At the top of the play she learns that she has leukemia.

Her sister Lee and her two sons, Hank and Charlie, come to Florida for the first time since Lee got married. The boys didn't even know their mother had a sister. The playwright, Scott McPherson, deals with the changing of relationships as Bessie's illness progresses