Seattle Rep Stages Edson's Highly Praised Play, `Wit'

------------------------------- Theater review

"Wit" by Margaret Edson. Directed by Martin Benson. Tuesday-Sunday through Nov. 20. Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center. $10-39. 206-443-2222. -------------------------------

"It is not my intention to give away the plot, but I think I die in the end," announces Vivian Bearing, the central figure in Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Wit."

You have to hear Vivian's voice (which emanates from actress Megan Cole, star of the Seattle Repertory Theatre's production) to get the full effect of that declaration.

Standing before us in bare feet and hospital-issue nightwear, her bald pate topped with a baseball cap and thin arm hooked to a portable IV, Vivian is a 50-year-old English professor with advanced ovarian cancer.

And yet her stiff spine and commanding, superior tone suggest a person entirely unbowed by illness - someone for whom a splendid brain is the only organ of the body that really matters.

If it sounds as if the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Wit" might be a homage to Vivian's courage and tenacity in the face of a miserable death, think again.

And don't assume her expert appreciation of John Donne's "Holy Sonnets" - those knotty 17th-century odes that grapple so eloquently with the dilemma of human mortality - to help ease her suffering.

"Death be not proud," wrote Donne. In "Wit" it is Vivian's pride, competitiveness and linguistic savvy that make her a mordantly witty narrator of her demise - though not, until late in the game, a very likeable person. Or one who can out-smart the grim reaper.

She brags about surviving eight horrific rounds of experimental chemotherapy, and when asked if anyone should be notified of her illness, replies almost triumphantly: "That won't be necessary!"

It's only after cancer has shorn Vivian of not merely her hair, but much of her dignity, immune system and mental acuity, that she craves basic human contact and comfort.

Vivian's humbling, near-biblical fall from hubris dominates "Wit" in ways that can feel almost sadistic.

Nor does the 95-minute play, which runs without intermission, spare the squeamish. There's no fake blood, but we watch Vivian endure degrading exams, dry heaves and emergency measures that may make you rethink euthanasia.

However, "Wit" also reaches for a salvation of compassion. In a pair of keenly tender encounters, the violently ill Vivian finally accepts consolation - a Popsicle offered by a caring nurse, Susie (Liz McCarthy), and the (real or hallucinatory) soothings of an old mentor, Dr. Ashford. Played warmly by Jean Burch, Ashford is the play's sole example of cerebral rigor tempered by fundamental kindness.

"Wit" also casts a sharp, knowing eye (and ear) on the marvels and limitations of medical science.

Attuned to every twitch of irony in speech and deed, Vivian often directs our attention to the brusque manners of her scientist-doctors: the all-business oncology chief Dr. Kelekian (Peter Silbert) and his brightest, brashest grad fellow, Jason (Brian Drillinger).

Both regard Vivian largely as a specimen to be prodded and studied, not as a scared soul in need of some hand-holding. In one of many ironies, Vivian often colludes with this objectification - and relates more to their medical position than her own.

Via short flashbacks, we see how she became a sort of lit-crit clinician herself. First she's a child in love with language, then an ambitious grad student buried in the library, and finally a stern teacher whose scalding criticism keeps students at bay.

Roving on Scott Weldin's spare, antiseptic set, washed out by Paulie Jenkins' fluorescent lights, Cole handles Vivian's high-flown language and many tough transitions very smoothly under Martin Benson's omniscient, rather monochromatic direction. (Cole also starred in the 1995 premiere of "Wit," at South Coast Repertory, staged by Benson.)

Cole's courageous, accomplished portrayal, which swerves from clipped haughtiness to quivering neediness, falters just once: in her pell-mell explication of a Donne sonnet. The poem should challenge us to grasp the thrill of a great mind's foray into the metaphysical unknown. Instead, we are rushed through what seems simply more evidence of Vivian's icy, detached brilliance.

In fact, my quarrel with the undeniably ingenious, eloquent and lavishly praised "Wit" is that the emotions vs. intellect showdown it presents isn't quite a fair fight. Vivian is such an extreme version of the solitary, heady academic that her physical suffering could be read as divine punishment for a lack of sociability.

In truth, would her medical ordeal have been less tragic or easier if she'd been nicer, more convivial?

Perhaps. But "Wit" goes to somewhat grueling dramatic extremes to make a philosophical point which isn't such a revelation to most of us: that, when day is done, simple loving kindness matters more than brain-power. Or to paraphrase Donne: "No woman is an island."