The Ohio State University Department of Theatre presented the central Ohio premiere of “Wit” last weekend, a thoughtful and eye-opening play that explores life, death and human interaction.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Margaret Edson, “Wit” featured Sue Ott Rowlands in the lead role of Vivian Bearing, a fifty-year-old professor of 17th century poetry and an expert on the brilliant Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Rowlands is an OSU associate professor and head of the acting and directing program in the Department of Theatre. Her character has been diagnosed with stage four metastatic ovarian cancer, a condition requiring advanced chemotherapy to help prevent the spread of disease.
At the onset of the play, Vivian Bearing walks to center stage wearing only a hospital gown and red ball cap, accompanied by an intravenous stand on wheels. She addresses the audience with a smile and a noticeably extensive vocabulary, all the while making light of her severe medical condition. Dr. Bearing has noticeably began chemotherapy treatments, pointing out her bald head and lack of eyebrows.
“Wit” includes a look at the work of John Donne, whose metaphysical poems propose complex mental puzzles that the reader is supposed to attempt to solve. Vivian applies the same cleverness and wit towards Donne’s poetry as she does to understanding her own cancer. She eventually learns that both poetry and cancer are unsolvable puzzles often times ending in fatal tragedy.
Vivian Bearing finds herself unable to cope with a loss of control of her life as well as an inpatient, inconsiderate medical staff. Dr. Jason Posner (Donald Clark) and Dr. Harvey Kelekian (Damien Bowerman) draw the line between patient relations and medical experimentation. Both physicians ignore Vivian’s depleting health condition in favor of valuable medical research that eventually cuts life short rather than prolonging it.
Although sometimes long and drawn out, “Wit” is powerful in its attempt to remind audiences that life is not to be taken for granted, instead lived with a passion for simplicity, and a respect for human kindness. The supporting characters effectively represent a selfish society living in ignorance of compassion for others. Numerous undergraduate and graduate theater students contributed to the production as well.
“Wit” has recently been made into an HBO television movie which focuses mainly on cancer as an illness.
