Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel ...
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Nov 22, 2011
K.D.
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A moving Pulitzer award-winning brilliant play by Margaret Edson (born 1961). A dying highly respected poetry professor specializing on John Donne works. The professor is diagnosed with stage 4 (there is no stage 5) ovarian cancer and she is expected to die in few days. The play chronicles her last few hours on earth. She is visited by her former professor who offers to read her a John Donne poem. She declines so her visitor pulls out a children’s book she just brought for her great-grandson’s b
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Feb 04, 2009
Jasmine
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This is a five star book that I don't feel the need to ever see again, which then makes it a four star book. Yeah that makes no sense. deal.
it is a nice criticism of the medical system, and the university system in general I would say.
It's not a peach, but it's probably a plum.
it is a nice criticism of the medical system, and the university system in general I would say.
It's not a peach, but it's probably a plum.
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Dec 13, 2009
Ellen
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I saw the movie version (made for television, despite its absolute perfection) not long after I read the Edson's play. I've watched the movie version so many times, the actual play and movie have merged a bit in my memory.
There is no way to "spoil" the plot, given that we learn Vivian Bearing, a John Donne scholar of distinction, tells us she is dying at the outset. Bearing's entire life has been one of the mind. Her terminal cancer forces her to confront the mind/body spli More...
There is no way to "spoil" the plot, given that we learn Vivian Bearing, a John Donne scholar of distinction, tells us she is dying at the outset. Bearing's entire life has been one of the mind. Her terminal cancer forces her to confront the mind/body spli More...
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Jan 09, 2008
Tung
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The 1999 Pulitzer winner for drama. The play focuses on middle-aged college professor, Vivian Bearing, and her struggle with late-stage ovarian cancer. It explores her intellectual, stoic approach to English literature and how that same perspective frames her perspective on her medical fate. That perspective changes as she compares her detached demeanor with that of the impersonal medical researcher who is treating her. This play was rather disappointing on the whole. First, I don’t care for
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May 01, 2008
Amanda
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I'm thinking about the play from a production standpoint, and am amazed that people can handle the seriousness and intellectual tie ins. It is an amazingly difficult piece and I'd imagine that any actress in the lead role would need some serious therapy after doing this for months. Oh god, how emotionally draining... A college professor with no friends, no family, just literature, journeying through a battle with cancer. It is heart-wrenching but quite artistic. I'd love to see it live, but
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Dec 17, 2011
Susan
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I finished this book less than an hour ago, so I'm still under its spell. But I have a feeling that this play will stick with me for a while. It chronicles the experience of an English scholar addressing herself and her terminal illness with the same tenacity and fierce intellectual questioning that she did while researching and teaching Donne's Holy Sonnets as a renowned 17th-century-poetry scholar. So much is packed into this slim play: intellect, metaphysical questions surrounding Death/S
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Aug 25, 2009
Linda
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What extraordinary writing, what depth and expanse. It matters that the play is actually entitled W - semi-colon - T which satisfies any obsessive/compulsive English Major. Every morsel of this writing satisfies.
Our hero is Vivian Bearing, Ph.D., 50, professor of 17th century poetry at the university. She has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
She is an expert on the poetry of John Donne. Perhaps this book was dreadfully and engagingly impactful to me because a frie More...
Our hero is Vivian Bearing, Ph.D., 50, professor of 17th century poetry at the university. She has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
She is an expert on the poetry of John Donne. Perhaps this book was dreadfully and engagingly impactful to me because a frie More...
Jul 01, 2009
Carolyn
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Apr 15, 2011
Kate
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Wow. This was overwhelming, and a bit too close to home for me, both because of my own experience and knowing what my dad must have been feeling as he faced death. Edson has sharp insight, often nailing my own feelings of isolation and desperation during the cancer treatment experience. The only thing that didn't speak to me was the very end, but that is just my own skepticism about an afterlife; it is beautifully written and a good ending.
One of the things that struck me was the ap More...
One of the things that struck me was the ap More...
Jun 17, 2010
Jesse
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I haven't read this book, but I saw the HBO movie version and it was impressive. Not to give too much away, the main character, a John Donne literature professor, learns how to read the world rightly. She thinks she knows how the world works because she can understand the complicated writings of a metaphysical poet, but she is blind to her own blindness, a modern pharisee who needs a bit of dark grace in order to see her true condition. Her wisdom is actually foolishness; her strength is really
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Feb 03, 2011
Antonio
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I rarely come across plays as potent as this one. “Wit: a Play” accomplishes some quite incongruous feats: it effectively piques our curiosity for the obscure poetry of a 16th Century John Donne; it disinterestedly instructs us on how modern medicine treats cancer; and yet, it shows the readers how the treatment takes shape at a very personal level. The play let us accompany an austere literature professor, Dr. Vivian Bearing, on her cancerous and catastrophic last days.
Poetry and c More...
Poetry and c More...
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Jun 19, 2011
Beth
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I was pretty blown away by this play. As a former academic, I appreciated the biting wit and wrenching poetics of the story. The language games in particular are artfully crafted. This was the first encounter in a long time that I had with the written word where I stopped and cried. I didn't really like the main character, but I was amazingly able to care for her as a human being by the end of the work. The final scene of the play is breathtakingly moving and truly unlike anything I've read befo
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Mar 23, 2011
Kelly
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Funny, sad and beautiful, and often all three at the same time.
If you know anything about Wit, you know it's about cancer, which is an overstatement. Or is it an understatement?
It's about the greatness and smallness of cancer. It's about literature, science, art, bodies, words and blood --and the connections between them all.
As Vivian Bearing battles cancer in the same way she battles the works of John Donne, The voice Edson writes in should make any writer jealous More...
If you know anything about Wit, you know it's about cancer, which is an overstatement. Or is it an understatement?
It's about the greatness and smallness of cancer. It's about literature, science, art, bodies, words and blood --and the connections between them all.
As Vivian Bearing battles cancer in the same way she battles the works of John Donne, The voice Edson writes in should make any writer jealous More...
Sep 17, 2010
Trisha
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Vivian Bearing, a professor of English, specializing in the work of John Donne is undergoing treatment for stage 4 ovarian cancer. The play details her experience both with the treatment externally and with her transformation internally as she reassesses her life.
I think what most intrigued me about the play is that it continually breaks the fourth wall. Vivian directly speaks to the audience throughout, and at one point even says "Action!" to transition from speaking to More...
I think what most intrigued me about the play is that it continually breaks the fourth wall. Vivian directly speaks to the audience throughout, and at one point even says "Action!" to transition from speaking to More...
Oct 04, 2010
Natalie
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I love this play. It is so beautifully written in so many ways. I still remember the first time I read it, it was in college and I remember sitting on the front stairs of the English building just devouring what I had read. It is still powerful 10 ten years later. I picked it up again after watching the Emma Thompson version of the play which is also fantastic. It deals with true human emotions and for a lover of English poetry the references to Donne and the exploration of words was like a visi
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May 13, 2009
Cissy
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I won't pretend I understand John Donne, whose writings are key in this play; however, I still appreciated this beautiful mixture of language and life. The story of a woman dying of ovarian cancer is the subplot to the more important storyline: finding balance and meaning in personal life. This play is at once tragic and enlightening; uncomfortable and engrossing; heartbreaking and hopeful. I watched the Emma Thompson movie version first, and I think her excellent performance enhanced my sub
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Aug 15, 2007
Katy
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I'm cunfussed about why so many poeple seem to be in love with it. Maybe it's because the main character has cancer? It's not a bad play, it's well written I just didn't much care for it.
I don't remember what it was, but at one point while I was reading something about it struck me and I thought, "This author has never had cancer". Perhaps it was that that ruined the rest of it for me, I don't know. Later I read the author's biography and I was right, she had not had cancer when More...
I don't remember what it was, but at one point while I was reading something about it struck me and I thought, "This author has never had cancer". Perhaps it was that that ruined the rest of it for me, I don't know. Later I read the author's biography and I was right, she had not had cancer when More...
May 25, 2011
Michelle
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Feb 16, 2008
Melynda
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okay. i take issue with the semi-colon crap on the other bindings but otherwise this is a fine play for reading. the lead, dr. vivian bearing (a surname with many definitions, all of them meaningful and fitting), is well-written if a little hard. no great truths about life and death are unveiled that other people haven't already but then that's sort of the point.
there isn't so much wit to be found in dying as in being dead.
this brought up a few flashbacks of hearing john donn More...
there isn't so much wit to be found in dying as in being dead.
this brought up a few flashbacks of hearing john donn More...
Jun 18, 2011
Jessa
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I read this play in one sitting, and I have to say that it was quite the experience. It was a beautiful work, that really made you stay focused on the characters. One of my professors played Vivian a few years back, and while I was reading I kept wishing I had seen that production. Ms Edson has written a beautiful piece with so much room to grow and discover for the actors and spectators alike.
Feb 06, 2011
Hannah
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Haunting story of an English professor's bout with ovarian cancer. She narrates the pain, the fear, the boredom, the attitude of the doctors. There are moments of humor, but as the play nears its end, she gets sicker, death seems inevitable, and the play takes on a much darker, sadder tone. If I got to play any role I wanted onstage, Vivian Bearing would definitely be one of my top choices.
Apr 28, 2011
Jennifer
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There's a lot of anthropological study that can be unpacked in this play, which I did to some extent in one of my papers. But more importantly, I think what really attracted me to this was watching the venerable Emma Thompson perform it on HBO - the sheer emotion, the yearning, the simplicity associated with ordinary things, like eating orange popsicles together, a few hours before her death.
Jun 21, 2010
Ifedayo
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I've wanted to read this play since I say the movie with Emma Thompson. The movie was amazing. I'm not entirely sure if reading the play adds much to the experience, as the movie follows it pretty closely. But overall, it's a short read. I read it in about an hour and a half. Beyond the obvious humanity and death tones, Wit really says a lot about end of life care in our society.
Jan 13, 2010
Skylar
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I found it very interesting that a literature professor was compared with a medical student. Both of them were so clinical and impersonal with their analysis. They overlooked the soul and lost the true purpose of the work. I think both people had a lot of fear. The only person who understood the soul was Susie. Though she was "stupid", she had true spiritual intelligence.
Jul 16, 2009
Rachel
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This brief play is the story of an English professor who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. I connected with this story because I am an English teacher, and my mother died of cancer. The text of John Donne's beautiful poem "Death, Be Not Proud" is woven throughout the play, and it is very inspiring. Because of this play, that poem became my very very favorite.
May 24, 2011
Hannah
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Beautiful. It is so easy to read! Everyone should read this book. It took me a little over an hour or so to read, and it was simple and meaningful and well worth the time. Vivian's transformation is amazing and the parallel between her work and medical research is awesome.
I'm taking a Medical Anthropology course this semester that has shed some light on the medical system. Still Susie stands as a major aspect of hospital stays, the role of the primary nurse.
We are discussin More...
I'm taking a Medical Anthropology course this semester that has shed some light on the medical system. Still Susie stands as a major aspect of hospital stays, the role of the primary nurse.
We are discussin More...
Dec 06, 2008
Peter
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Holy Cr@p.
This is the first thing she ever wrote. Yikes. In fact, it's the only thing she's ever written except for one other play a few years ago that hasn't ever been staged.
She says in an interview with Jim Lehrer I found on the PBS website that she just really wanted to write a play.
And this is what came out.
This is the first thing she ever wrote. Yikes. In fact, it's the only thing she's ever written except for one other play a few years ago that hasn't ever been staged.
She says in an interview with Jim Lehrer I found on the PBS website that she just really wanted to write a play.
And this is what came out.
Jul 23, 2010
Sarah
rated it:
A brilliant play about a professor who is an expert on John Donne's poetry and who also has advanced cancer. I could hardly put it down and when I finished it over my lunch break at work, I cried, even though it was not really a convenient place to do so. I first heard about this play in N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope.
Feb 27, 2009
Tiffany
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Have read this at least four times now and it's always enjoyable. The dialogue, the critique of the medical system, the professor who is "a force" in her field, but so caught up in deconstructing the minutae of Donne's metaphysical poetry that she can't see the bigger picture....Love it.
Sep 11, 2010
Nina
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I liked this play, although it was pretty depressing, and not quite as witty as I hoped. Of course, plays aren't meant to be read, so I might like it more if I saw it on stage. I missed it when it played in NY, but I would like to see it done at some point.
