Wit

“Wit” is a haunting play that looks at the paradox between the complexity and simplicity of dying. “Nothing but a breath – a comma – separates life from the everlasting. It is very simple really.”

Vivian, a professor of 17th-century English poetry, has been an uncompromising scholar and demanding teacher. She has allowed herself little time to cultivate personal relationships. Vivian has devoted her life to the study of John Donne’s poetry, which uses wit to revel in the complexity of Life and God issues, rather than trying to resolve them. She approaches her illness in the same way that she approached the study of Donne – aggressively, intensely, rationally, and with the wit that is associated with his work.

But now, enduring a painful experimental treatment for cancer, she is looking for a kind of spiritual strength that will ease her suffering. She must venture beyond her intellectual world to come to terms with her death and learns through the simple act of human kindness, that this Is not a complicated battle, but simplicity itself, if one allows it.

In “Wit”, prize winner, Margaret Edson, has created a work that is as challenging intellectually as it is emotionally. Like Donne, “Wit” is both profound and humorous, and will transform the audience as it transforms Vivian.