Wit by Margaret Edson

First published: 1999

First produced: 1995, at the South Coast Repertory Second Stage Theater, Costa Mesa, California

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of work: The 1990’s

Locale: A university hospital in the United States

Principal Characters:

• Vivian Bearing, a professor of English
• Harvey Kelekian, the chief of oncology at the university hospital
• Jason Posner, a clinical fellow at the university hospital
• Susie Monahan, a nurse in the cancer inpatient unit
• E. M. Ashford, a retired professor of English
• Mr. Bearing, Vivian’s father

The Play

Wit dramatizes the last days of a renowned professor of English, who is dying of ovarian cancer. As the play opens, Vivian Bearing, a noted scholar specializing in the study of Metaphysical poet John Donne’s holy sonnets, is alone onstage in hospital garb, attached to an IV pole. Her opening lines and many others thereafter are addressed directly to the audience, to whom she describes her reactions as she learns of the progress of her disease. Her physician, Harvey Kelekian, a renowned oncologist, enters and, in an exchange that Vivian can hardly follow, suggests a series of strong and potentially painful chemical injections to arrest her cancer. Although she agrees to the procedure, it is clear that she and Kelekian have a strained relationship. He proposes treatment because “it will make a significant contribution to our research,” while she accepts treatment to show her independence and toughness.

The scene shifts back in time to Vivian’s undergraduate years, when she was the protégé of the great English scholar E. M. Ashford. While Vivian looks up to Ashford as the model of a strong woman, Ashford seems interested only in sharpening Vivian’s focus on literary study. Lecturing her on the requirements of word choice, punctuation, and wordplay, Ashford teaches Vivian that to succeed in academe, one must master the arcane knowledge and specialized vocabulary that will be accepted by academic peers.

Back in the present, Vivian undergoes a series of medical tests conducted by technicians, who understand only the rote procedures of medical care. She discovers that the clinical fellow working with Kelekian at the hospital is Jason Posner, a former undergraduate in her Metaphysical poetry class. Jason subjects her to a grueling inquiry into family and medical history and eventually conducts a physical examination that Vivian finds particularly degrading, as it is performed by a former student.

The central scenes of the drama display Vivian’s deteriorating condition. She is repeatedly poked and prodded not only by physicians but also by interns, who see her as a classic case study in the invidious effects of disease. Despite the efforts of the medical staff and of her nurse, Susie Monahan, the cancer resists treatment and continues to spread throughout her body. At the same time, Vivian explains to the audience how her confinement in the hospital has made her aware of her isolated existence as a professor. The joy she has taken in explicating Donne’s works has been earned at the expense of friendships.

In a key scene that gives the audience insight into her character, Vivian describes “the very hour of the very day” when she knew “words would be my life’s work.” In a flashback, she recalls her fifth birthday, when, while reading a fable to her father, she became enamored of the word “soporific.” What the audience notices is the interplay between father and daughter: The enthusiasm of the child, who discovers how words convey both action and feeling, is contrasted with the restraint of the adult, who gently leads her to awareness but refrains from expressing a shared feeling of joy in her discovery.

As Vivian falls further into the grip of the disease, she struggles to recapture some sense of the dignity and power she experienced in her own milieu, the university classroom. To demonstrate her power in that realm, she lectures the audience on Donne’s “Holy Sonnet V,” reciting the textual history of the poem, citing important modern criticism, and explaining the interplay between God and the speaker. In the midst of the imaginary lecture, however, she is whisked away for more tests, becoming once again a pawn in the hands of hospital staff.

Following her tests, in a conversation with Jason, Vivian finally glimpses what has been wrong with her life as a scholar. Jason is intent on gathering data for his research and seems unaffected by the knowledge that his patient and former teacher will soon die. “Do you ever miss people?” she asks him. While he says he does, his behavior makes it clear that he is merely humoring her to keep her stable for further medical analysis. Immediately thereafter, Vivian imagines herself talking to her students about Donne’s poetry. Her unflinching demands on them demonstrate that she has treated them as Professor Ashford, Doctor Kelekian, and Jason now treat her.

The nurse Susie interrupts Vivian’s reverie to discuss the hospital’s policy regarding resuscitation in case of the failure of major organs. Vivian opts not to be resuscitated, and Susie marks “DNR” (do not resuscitate) on her chart. While heavily sedated, Vivian experiences a final flashback: She is visited by Professor Ashford, who, instead of talking of literature, climbs into bed and reads to her the same fable that Vivian read to her father when she was five years old.

When Vivian’s vital signs fail, Jason ignores the DNR notation on her chart and calls in a team to try to keep her alive. Only when hospital personnel force him to rescind the order does he back away, disappointed that he may not be able to continue his research. As the staff cleans up the room following the pronouncement of death, Vivian rises from her hospital bed, raises her arms, and disrobes, the light bathing her as a sign that she is moving from this world to the next.

Dramatic Devices

Written to be staged without scene breaks or an intermission, Wit displays the inexorable progress of the protagonist toward a death that she is powerless to prevent. Though the action cuts back and forth between past and present, there is always a sense of inevitability created by the dialogue and transitions from initial scenes involving exploratory diagnosis to the final, hectic scene in which the hospital staff tries to resuscitate Vivian.

Edson also makes excellent use of flashbacks, moving the action from the present back to key periods in Vivian’s life to illustrate why she became isolated and where she missed opportunities to demonstrate her humanity. In this fashion, Wit resembles Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (pr., pb. 1949), a play that skillfully melds past and present to dramatize the tragic end of the life of the protagonist, Willie Loman.

Edson herself has said on more than one occasion that the play presents the tragedy of isolation in modern society. The concept of “wit” serves as the principal device for dramatizing that sense of isolation. The eighteenth century man of letters, Samuel Johnson, gave the term its modern literary definition: “a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike.” The specific kind of wit practiced by John Donne and his contemporaries among the Metaphysical poets informs Edson’s critique of modern society. Taking two highly specialized professions, medicine and literary studies, she demonstrates how professionals caught up in their work not only develop a coded language almost impervious to outsiders but also frequently behave with disdain toward those not possessing the specialized knowledge that they have mastered.

The play is an extended exercise in metaphysical wit, constantly comparing two dissimilar professions: one highly regarded by the general public, one usually perceived as ephemeral and of little use to mainstream society. What Edson demonstrates in Wit is that there are more similarities than differences between the practice of medicine and the practice of literary study. Both, when raised to the level of an intellectual game, actually harm society by devaluing personal relationships. The pedantry in Vivian’s insistence that students understand the significance of Donne’s use of a comma rather than a semicolon in the final line of his sonnet “Death Be Not Proud” shares chilling similarities with the inhumane conversations among research physicians and their interns at the bedside of dying patients.

Critical Context

As drama, Wit approaches the form of Shakespearean tragedy, appearing at times to be comedic but moving inevitably toward its predetermined end. It is not Vivian Bearing’s death that makes the play tragic, however, but her failure to realize, until it is too late, how much of her life she has wasted in pursuing knowledge at the expense of personal relationships. This particularly modern theme resonates with audiences because modern American society has placed such emphasis on professional accomplishment as a means of establishing self-worth.

Wit won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in drama, the New York Drama Critics Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Outer Critics’ Circle Award. It is Edson’s first play, and she stated to numerous reviewers and reporters that she would not pursue a career as a dramatist and would remain a kindergarten teacher. Nevertheless, the critical acclaim that met the production when it first debuted in California, the consistent praise it received from New York critics, and the continuing interest further productions generated in cities across the country suggest that the play strikes a chord with playgoers that will give Wit staying power on the American stage.

Sources for Further Study

Iannone, Carol. “Donne Undone.” First Things: The Journal of Religion and Public Life 100 (February, 2000): 12-14.

Kanfer, Stefan. “Leaps of Faith.” New Leader 81 (October 5-October 19, 1998): 22-23.

Philip, Abraham, MD. “Wit: A Play.” JAMA 283 (June 28, 2000): 3261.

Simon, John. “Well Done.” New York 31 (September 28, 1998): 78-79.

Sulmasy, Daniel P. “At Wit’s End: Dignity, Forgiveness, and the Care of the Dying.” Journal of General Internal Medicine 16 (2001): 335-338.