“Vivian Bearing walks on the empty stage pushing her IV pole.”
Wit, A play by Margaret Edson, 1993
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Star recommended this minimalist, beautiful little play, and I’m so happy I added it to my read list. Vivian Bearing, the world’s foremost scholar on the work of poet John Donne, is dying of ovarian cancer at the University Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center. As the disease progresses the hardened professor who spent her life in exacting research finds herself becoming a research project by the doctors who study her particularly aggressive cancer. It’s bleak material, but Vivian has spent her lifetime drinking from the well of the metaphysical poets in seeming preparation. Her acerbic wit and unique point of view, delivered directly to the audience in wonderful fourth wall breaking monologues, carry the play above sentimentality and into a thoughtful and gentle reflection on mortality.
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