Wit

Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play (1999) Wit, now receiving a powerful revival at The Bay Theatre Company (to 11/6), is as much an examination of two belief systems as it is two different approaches to life and death. On the one hand, we have Renaissance scholarship abutting the practice of medicine - C.P. Snow's The Two Cultures, with science now ascendant. On the other hand, there's the method of how we go after that certainty: How do we acquire knowledge, gain wisdom, and transfer it - teach? Is it through rigor, discipline, punishing exactitude - tough love - or is it in calibrated, patient (or student)-administered doses, with time for reflection and growth?

You'll certainly ponder these considerations in Ms. Edson's meaty play, but there's no getting around the fact that death and dying hold the stage for the viewer for the 100 plus minutes (without intermission) of riveting theater. Director Richard Pilcher lays out the action comfortably in a script structured as a one-woman show inserted into a series of vignettes. It's faithful to a fault, with detailed character study and fluid blocking. You'll feel the mirror held up uncomfortably to life in this tragedy of manners, but there will be a number of comic moments to break the tension. The playwright has taken dramatic license with the medical profession, not to mention academia, to make her points. How well you negotiate them will determine your reaction to the play. (There's a disclaimer of sorts by BTC's medical advisor, Dr. Jack Stern included in the program.) Or maybe the medical system just looks the way it's presented in the play to outsiders. Regardless, there'll be many wince-evoking moments that on some level will connect with your experience.

Vivian Bearing, played with brio and probity by Rena Cherry Brown, has late stage ovarian cancer by the time she enters the maws of the medical system. Her focal point on this journey is research oncologist Dr. Harvey Kelekian (a wonderfully dispassionate James Lasher) who prescribes a full dose treatment regimen. Dr. Bearing is herself an academic gatekeeper in her chosen field, specializing in the metaphysical poetry of the 16^th century, John Donne's in particular. She too goes after her quarry full bore. These two doctors have much in common - two sides of the same coin - and both lament the poor quality of students they've been handed to train. (The mentorships of the respective programs are also similar, as Dr. Bearing's early study with E. M. Ashford, played by cheerfully pedantic Jean H. Miller, brings out. The degradation of subordinates - students, patients, and workers alike - will not be missed.) Both seek out their biggest challenges - he investigates cancer, she examines metaphysical poetry - to unlock life's secrets. They go at it like code breakers, one specimen or punctuation mark at a time. It's amusing when their respective systems interact, communications are loaded with suspicion. Science favors the medical history and monitoring to provide evidence as first Dr. Kelekian and later research fellow Dr. Jason Posner (given a first-in-class turn by Matt Bassett) illustrate, while Dr. Bearing chooses language and exegesis, each talking past the other.

Nurse Susie Monahan (Mundy Spears) serves a bridge between the two camps, the authorial voice, if I had to guess. Ms. Spears exudes empathy as a caregiver and is so good in her role you'll hardly think she's acting. As a patient in today's managed care system, you can only hope to find an advocate with such a kindly disposition.

There's no significant other in Dr. Bearing's life, unless it's her profession or perhaps John Donne. The professor fixates on the poet's Holy Sonnets, Number 10 "Death Be Not Proud," this being of special interest, given her present circumstances. Donne's stance is paradoxical with respect to salvation - is he hedging his bets - or are the intentions of the Almighty unknowable? The arc of the play and Dr. Bearing's quest will lead to some resolution by the finale. The key seems to be the interpretation of the term "Wit" which serves as the mental foil of the age. We might call it intuitive knowledge, reached innately or personally via experience. Dr. Bearing's forebears have argued the point over punctuation, with respect to life and death in "Sonnet 10"; some say it's a slow transition, others feel it's a sharp break with a capital D. The playwright and (ultimately) the lead character favor the latter, the published version of the play bears the title W;t. As the ancient Greeks were fond of saying, wisdom comes from suffering. With Death, as Dr. Bearing learns, there's a sharp transformation; or transcendence! Ultimately, it's something each of us will have to discover individually, on our own.

Ms. Brown is nothing short of sensational in her portrayal of Dr. Bearing. With her understated delivery, hand-flourishes, and ironic asides to the audience she is every inch the demanding professor in demeanor early in the play. Slowly that façade starts to dissolve as the course of treatment and disease take their toll. By the second half, the character's misfortunes and self-revelations build to a kind of "Passion Play," in which the actor reveals the pain and misery of her plight. Seldom (if ever) have I witnessed such an emotionally demanding role delivered with such pathos. Whether you empathize with her predicament, look at your own mortality, or reflect on the fate of a loved one - however you get there - you'll be as profoundly moved as I was at the end.

Ken Sheats has yet again found a way to solve BTC's postage stamp set with a series of sliding curtains and an assortment of office and hospital movables, supplied by prop mistress JoAnne Gidos. His drab, institutional color palette allows Christina Rosetta McAlpine's costumes to jump out at you, while Preston Strawn makes the most of the considerable lighting cues to transition mood and scenes on a dime. Designer Andy Serb ably conveys the ambient hospital sounds, but I thought some directorial insertions - to break up long scenes - or original music composition might have helped.

A four-member cast of interns/techs/students, including Kelly Armstrong, Ryan Brown, Amy Kellett, and James Poole serves as a backdrop to the worlds on view and each brings something to the table.

Ms. Edson is to this point a one-hit wonder with Wit, a rarity for a playwright but even rarer for a Pulitzer Prize-winner. Whether this is a one and done effort - maybe there's one great play in every one(!); the result of a talented collaboration with directors, actors, producers, and agents; an altruistically motivated endeavor - she donated the prize money for the purposes of training medical residents; or the hassles of the theater are reminiscent of the medical system she once worked in and she'd just rather teach grade school, we'll see. The program notes another play (yet unproduced) and The Washington Post reported that Broadway plans a revival of Wit starring Cynthia Nixon slated for early next year. A Tony Award for best play - it was done originally, Off-Broadway - might refocus the Ms. Edson's career.

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Sound check: A continuously running HVAC at the back of the house intruded somewhat on the mostly conversational-level dialogue.

Program notes: Excellent with background material on the playwright and poet as well as comments supplied by the director and artistic director, all putting a human face on the play.

Moment of the play: Jean H. Miller as E.M. Ashford reading the Runaway Bunny in a hallucinatory segment to Rena Cherry Brown as Vivian Bearing. This "little allegory of the soul" will tug at your heartstrings.

Line of the play: Vivian Bearing: I wish I had given him [former student Jason Posner] an A. Said before her pelvic exam.

Stars of the play: 1) Rena Cherry Brown as Vivian Bearing, 2) Mundy Spears as Susie Monahan, and 3) Preston Strawn, lighting designer.

Applause meter: Highly recommended. For those ready to make the trip, this is one emotionally profound theatrical journey.

Audience reaction: Standing "O" from most of the intimate crowd which was fully engaged and laughing freely at the many humorous moments included. Post-show lobby crowd was subdued, respectful, almost like the aftermath of a memorial service, which in a way it was.

Audience advisory: Female nudity at the very end.

Photo credit: Stan Barouh