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WIT Send This Review to a Friend
There can be no good way to die of cancer. But there can be exemplary courage in facing the inevitable. Margaret Edson’s clinical play “Wit,” revived by the Manhattan Theatre Club in exemplary fashion under the direction of Lynne Meadow, portrays the intense battle between doom and dignity.
Cynthia Nixon not only goes for broke in her dramatic portrayal of hospitalized Dr. Vivian Bearing. She has shaved her head to reveal the convincing evidence of the ravages wrought by chemotherapy. Wearing a cap to partially cover the baldness, she looks like the patient personified, which probably helps her inhabit the role. The look also goes far toward convincing her audience.
Dr. Bearing’s strength lies in her intellect as an English teacher, still dedicated to the understanding of her subject, as in the case of poet Donne. Her approach to literature is partly her armor, with a mind that refuses to be overshadowed by illness. The link is further established through the character of Suzanne Bertish as her kind mentor.
The once busy life of Dr. Bearing is now confined to the hospital environment, with its routines and medical attentiveness. For an audience, there is also the wait for the inevitable. The issue raised is how one will greet the finality. The climax occurs suddenly when the patient slips into unconsciousness and the entire mechanism of the hospital leaps into action with the aim of resuscitation. It takes a humane nurse to try to throw wrench into the works with pleading shouts that the patient’s chart is marked with instructions not to resuscitate.
We are witness to a finally merciful death that is the loss of a once very vital, smart member of society but eased with the satisfaction of seeing pain end and of our being left with the memory of a woman who must have been something in her prime, and perhaps with thoughts about how we will fare at our departure. At the Manhattan Theatre Company, The Samuel J. Friedman Theater, 261 West 47th Street. Phone: 212-239-6200.
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