Wit - Garrick Theatre - 26/03/08 by Julia Taylor

Wit is a strange name for a play that is about a woman who is dying from Ovarian cancer. Nobody in their right mind would say Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer prize winning work was witty although it does refer to the wit in John Donne’s poetry which is central to the theme.

Even so, Wit contains gentle humour which is its saviour and gives the audience a break from the enduring misery of its subject matter. The title Wit is not entirely accurate. It is just easier to say. The writer meant it to be called W;t. I presume this was her way of referring to the interest of the central character.

For Dr Vivian Bearing, a fifty-year-old English Literature professor is obsessed by the seventeenth century metaphysical poet, John Donne until cancer interrupts her studies. She is a stickler for emphasising the importance of the punctuation when interpreting his works to her students.

How clever of Edson to use a semi-colon to spell out all that!

We often hear the phrase “a battle bravely fought” when people die of cancer. Thanks to the skill of Ruth Evans who plays Vivian,we awesomely join her character in that fight and follow her through the indignity of probing by doctors and experimental chemotherapy leading to hair loss.

I don’t know how many words Ruth had to learn but, on stage most of the time, she speaks them with sincerity and immaculate timing portraying courage without overstated emotion. I have seldom seen such a fine performance by one woman. She brings that hospital room to life. We are with her when she suffers from vomiting, shivering, intense pain and, above all, fear.

Gradually we learn that Vivian has become so absorbed by John Donne that he is her only friend leaving no room for human interaction. She has no family. She is alone.

So it is a relief to us when, approaching death, she is visited by her graduate school Professor (Margaret Leslie) and, perhaps, at the last moment discovers that there is more to life than books.

But the question remains, would she have chosen to live her life differently if given the chance? Edson pinpoints the insensitivity of doctors. Brian Stoner as her specialist and Richard Haynes as his assistant and former student of Vivian, treat her as an item rather than a human being.

The only medic who truly cares about her emotional needs as well as her physical ones is the nurse expertly played by Rosi Hunter. I liked the double speak when Ruth enunciated her thoughts at the same time as the doctor is explaining treatment.

This play has stamped all over it the sensitive touch of director Celia Bonner and the result is a production of which the writer would be proud.