Wit by Margaret Edson at Manhattan Theater Club

[W;t]
by Margaret Edson

with

Cynthia Nixon
Pun Bandu
Suzanne Bertish
Michael Countryman
Jessica Dickey
Chické Johnson
Greg Keller
Carra Paterson
Zachary Spicer

Directed by Lynne Meadow

Scenic Design: Santo Loquasto

Wit is one of the most difficult plays I have ever watched. It had some of the finest acting I have ever witnessed. It is one of the best plays I have ever seen.

This was the third play of my five play subscription for the season. I had a vague idea of what it was about, but I wasn’t prepared for the depth, the intensity, or the precision of the performance; it was astounding. I had to compose myself for more than ten minutes along with many others who were still weeping into soaked tissues, unable, like me, to pry themselves out of their chairs. We were in shock and exhausted. Cynthia Nixon never left the stage, never stopped talking throughout this one act play.

Both Cynthia Nixon and Lynne Meadow, director, are breast cancer survivors, however, that was not the influence for producing the play.

Cynthia Nixon stars in Wit [W;t] by 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner, Margaret Edson, who, it is interesting to note, is a teacher who knew she had one great play in her. She was influenced by work in a hospital’s oncology unit. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Wit in 1999 and resumed her teaching career of youngsters content in her one grand production.

The main character, played by Cynthia Nixon, is Vivian Bearing who is a professor of English and a Ph.d. Her specialty is John Donne’s metaphysical poetry, the Holy Sonnets. She’s one tough cookie of a professor; she is demanding, caustic, sarcastic and that’s the way she reacts when she finds out she has stage lV ovarian cancer. She confronts the illness head-on and survives eight experimental cancer treatments, facing her menacing killer with wit and defiance. She thought she could control anything with her intellect, but has to face her own mortality: “death be not proud.”

Dr. Bearings experience is a reflection of the Donne sonnets she teaches; the questioning of life and death take on new meaning as her illness rapidly progresses. In a series of flashbacks she wishes she had been kinder. She replays the pivotal moment, when at five, words and meanings became connected; she fell in love with words. As time progressed she was shaped by her professor and challenged on her own understanding of the deeper meanings of the sonnets. Life and death were separated merely by a semi-colon. Meaning is what is taken from the words and their position between punctuation marks.

As the play progress she becomes less closed, more accepting of life beyond the intellectual. She sees: It is not how brilliant one is, but how kind, a very large lesson, as Vivian discovers that life is a lonely journey and in the end we have never left who we were as children.

autographed Playbill

Miss Nixon shaved her head and removed her eyebrows to be in character. She came out and signed autographs and posed for photos unselfconsciously, and then was whisked away in a black van.

“death is no longer something… to act out on a stage with exclamation marks. It is a comma. A pause. In this way, the uncompromising way…one learns something from the poem, wouldn’t you say? Life, death, soul, God… past, present. Not insuperable barriers. Not semicolons. Just a comma. Life, death, I see. It’s a metaphysical conceit, it’s wit.”

reply sanssouciblogs wrote on Jan 10 Here’s a very interesting link: something to think about and very apropos after seeing this play http://www.empowernetwork.com/Caroline/nurse-reveals-the-top-5-regrets-people-make-on-their-deathbed/

reply sweetpotatoqueen wrote on Jan 12 This sounds like such a very powerful play…full of the the real core of life lessons.I’m astounded by Cynthia Nixon’s comittment to her character …never really thought of her as an actress with such talent. Sounds as if this is one of those plays that you will never forget. Thanks for sharing your theatrical adventure with us.

reply sanssouciblogs wrote on Jan 12 Truly unforgettable, and I think she has been typecast but deserves a marvelous reputation. She has a great bio. It has still affected me.