Reviews

Bent on staging the unstageable (though not to a Kane level), Edson has us watch a brilliant professor's health deteriorate from her initial cancer diagnosis throughout the entirety of her treatment. A compilation of direct address (Vivian, the principal character, spends most of the play denying any fourth wall), tight scenes, and simple, painful characters.

Edson lets her principal character fail, and miserably too. It's a bold move, one that sometimes got clunky (as in when Vivian tries to discuss with Jason his interests in medicine), and a definite acting challenge. It requires an impeccable performer no doubt. Not a play for college troupes.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Edson has written a near impossible character - by which I mean hyper-realistic - in a nearly impossible style touching on nearly impossible topics.

A moving play. I hope to see it in production one day.

juliaeconner's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective fast-paced

4.5

slichto3's review against another edition

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4.0

This play is really quite wonderful, but it is also jarringly sad in a realistic, hits-close-to-home way. Wit is about Vivian, a woman diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. Vivian is also an exacting scholar of the poet John Donne, a loner, and devastatingly human. In the play, Vivian walks us through her life before she dies of the disease. How she's treated by the doctors and nurses, her reflections on her life before her illness and during her treatment, and the relevancy of her studies on Donne. It's really all very fascinating, while also being painfully tragic. I just couldn't help feeling that we are all going the way of Vivian (and that's if we're lucky). The thought of the loneliness and pain and fear of death enveloped me when I was reading this book. Overall, it was a painful experience, but very worth confronting.