If you or a loved one has struggled with cancer, then gathering in a room to see it painfully re-enacted in the Vital Theatre's production of Andrea Lepcio's Looking for the Pony, now at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, may be a consoling experience. Others, however, may find the work more effective as therapy than theater.

In its favor, Looking for the Pony has more vitality than the average soggy entry in the genre. The focus on two sisters (played by Deirdre O'Connell and J. Smith-Cameron) -- one of whom has breast cancer -- approaches the issues of love and loss without the weight of romantic cliche. There is also an emphasis on comedy, largely through the various caricatures of doctors, fri[...]