Strange Birds

JANEANE GAROFALO, LILI TAYLOR, CELIA WESTON IN ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS MARVIN’S ROOM. PHOTO: CHRIS BUCK, 2017.

If we accept Tolstoy’s premise that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, then the clan at the heart of Marvin’s Room is unique in its ability to find hilarity in the harrowing. Scott McPherson’s play, which makes its Broadway debut on June 29 in a new production from the Roundabout Theatre Company, documents the reunion of two estranged sisters, Bessie (Lili Taylor) and Lee (Janeane Garofalo), as they reckon with an ailing father and Bessie’s recent leukemia diagnosis. Although it’s Garofalo’s Broadway debut, the comedy legend seems up for the challenge. “When you’re with siblings and family, occasionally you regress to the age of 15,” she says. “It’s stuff I can relate to.”