Productions

Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Margaret Edson’s Wit follows the journey of Professor Vivian Bearing, who has been diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer. There is no Stage V.

Poetry, and not people, has always been her priority and she has gained a fearsome reputation in her specialist subject, the holy sonnets of John Donne. Faced with the inevitable progress of the disease and an experimental treatment, she applies her customary critical analysis to her predicament and is shocked to discover the failings of her normally reliable intellectual security. Vivian encounters alien emotions as she seeks to understand and accept her ever-growing need for forgiveness, dignity and compassion.

Funny and sad, tragic and life-affirming, complex and simple, Wit is an exploration of what transpires when words finally fail. Of how, inevitably, art and science are equally useless, equally detached.

Yet this is no tearful lecture on how to die. Instead, Wit is a dry-eyed lesson on how to live; with simplicity and kindness.

11- 14th November 2009 at 8pm
St. Brides Centre, Orwell Terrace
Tickets £9.00/£7.00
Tickets now available. Click here to order!!

For more information, visit the Wit microsite.


Cast:
Vivian Bearing, Ph.D. - Hilary Davies
Harvey Kelekian, M.D. / Mr. Bearing - John Kelly
Jason Posner, M.D. - Steven McFarlane
Susie Monahan, R.N. - Lorraine McCann
E.M. Ashford, D. Phil. - Wendy Mathison
Lab Technicians/ Students / Fellows - Gordon Craig, Ross Hope, Ricky Leighton, Vanashree Thapliyal


Crew:
Stage Manager - Andy Ellis
Lighting Designer - Simon Hayes
Sound Designer - Sean Campbell
Costume Design - Susan Wales
Make-up Effects - Chris Allan
Properties - Gillian Burnett, Heather Nicholson
General Manager - Ross Hope
Production Finance Manager - Jo Butt
Publicity - David Grimes
Photographer - Jon Davey, Agnes Kliczka
Rehearsal Prompt - Fiona Arnott, Duncan Forgan, Siobhan McGovern, Heather Nicholson, Claire Wood

Our thanks to the following organisations and individuals who have helped with the loan of costumes, properties, equpiment or who have helped in other ways: Rachel Brown, Fiona Mitchell, Jacques Kerr, Iain Kerr, Kate Stephenson, Jean MacGilchrist, Faye Ward, Astley Ainslie Hospital, Borders General Hospital, St. Serf's Players, Broughton High School, St. Brides Centre, and Edinburgh University Graduates Association.


Wit was awarded the Fraser Neal Trophy as the winner the 2009 SCDA Full Length play competition. As an entrant, the production was adjudicated and provided with a written critique as well as a numerical score. Here is our winning written critique!

Comments - Friday, November 13, 2009

In-the-round presentation and an almost bare stage suited the production admirably. Costumes and properties were appropriate and authentic. Precisely choreographed, well-drilled and speedy scene changes kept the action moving smoothly throughout and used the stage area extremely well. Clinical white lighting in the opening stages created atmosphere, giving an impression of open-ness with nothing hidden. Subsequent subtle lighting changes were smoothly executed. Excellent and subtle introduction of music in the final stages. Technically excellent throughout.

The splendid initial entrance of Vivian grabbed the attention immediately, and her long opening speech held the audience throughout. The pace which was established through the well-focussed scenes between Vivian and Kelekian, Vivian and Ashford, and the distressing pelvic examination was maintained throughout each succeeding scene. The acting area was excellently used, with well-planned movement and frequently changing locations varying focus and maintaining interest. Although Vivian’s ‘strict’ persona necessarily informed many/most of her relationships throughout the play, perhaps at an earlier stage she might have been allowed to demonstrate slightly less self-control in her contacts with the audience, thus providing a touch more contrast in her characterisation. Many impressive moments:- Vivian’s transition to a child was excellently done, and the relationship between her and her father was established well; walking the circle of light was an outstanding conception; Posner’s explanation of the fascination of research gave the character ‘humanity’; a marvellous ‘ice lolly’ sequence allowed the pitch and intensity to drop, preparing the way for the subsequent gradual breakdown; the touching ‘soporific’ scene was well handled; the interaction between Posner and Susie was very natural; an atmospheric and tender scene between Vivian and Ashford was beautifully done, producing an unforgettable stage picture; in the final stages Vivian’s gradual loss of control was beautifully handled. The alternative ending was superb.

The company presented well contrasted characters, good team playing, and excellent support for each other. Vivian: poised and expressive throughout; great contact with the audience; totally in control of a most demanding role. Kelekian: precise, clinical, and believable portrayal, and as Mr Bearing distant but understatedly affectionate. Posner: natural, spontaneous and expressive; developed the character well. Susie: very matter-of-fact and down-to-earth portrayal; totally at home with medical procedures - could maintain a presence in a hospital ward without suspicion! Ashford: a convincing and pleasing characterisation, with a beautifully sensitive and soft touch in her final scene. Technicians, Students, etc: varied and very individual characters, good reactions, great support throughout.

Altogether a well planned, well executed, smoothly flowing production, with sensitively handled scenes and expressive performances. Absolutely gripping throughout. An outstanding production of a most challenging play.



Thursday, November 12, 2009
St Brides Centre
* * *
Review by Thom Dibdin

Tough and uncompromising but not quite achieving its full potential, the Grad’s production of Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer prize-winner finds great emotional depth but is ultimately undone by purely technical details.

Never a company to make things easy on themselves, the Grads have taken on a horrifyingly difficult production. It’s not so much the subject material - the final two hours in the life of Vivian Bearing Ph.D. who has stage IV Ovarian cancer. Although that itself is a pretty big ask to make entertaining.

The difficulty the size of the role given to the person playing Bearing. Not only is she on stage throughout the production, with a mind-boggling amount of material to remember, but she has to jump between different aspects of the character in tricky flashback scenes.

Get it all right and the result will be a stunning emotional roller-coaster that certainly leaves its audience breathless - and more than likely fighting back the tears. Even more so in this production in the round where company - and audience - have nowhere to hide.

Taking on that tough call is Hilary Davies. And she has certainly succeeded in the first part of her task. The words are all there and, under David Grimes’ deliberately paced-out direction, the ark of the final two hours of Bearing’s suddenly curtailed life brutally revealed.

So too is the frustration of a woman who has been used to being at the very top of her chosen field of study: a punctilious professor of works of English metaphysical poet, John Donne, feared and revered by her undergraduates for uncompromising attitude to the interpretation of Donne’s works.

That frustration - and her uncompromising attitude - is born out in Bearing’s decision to undertake an experimentally high level of chemotherapy, in order that her body might be used as research for cancer specialist Dr Kelekian (John Kelly) and his intern, Jason Posner (Steven McFarlane).

As the audience see Bearing die over the course of the play, they come to realise that it is not the cancer which has killed her, but the treatment.

All this medical side is splendidly done - or at least Posner’s indifference to her personal feelings in his blinkered following of the experimental path, coupled the deep, personal involvement of Bearing’s nurse, Susie. Both McFarlane and Lorraine McCann as Susie, put in strong and convincing performances.

Not at all convincing, however, is Kelly’s portrayal of Kelekian. He should be, at least in intellectual terms, Bearing’s equal. As Kelly stumbles over his words and bumbles through his lines you never believe he could have been. Moreover, his performance pulls you back into the theatre, where the other cast members have largely succeeded in transporting you to another place.

To be fair, the technical problems of staging the play in the round in St Bride’s also impinge. The hospital bed trundles loudly across the echoing dance floor, while the drip which Bearing pulls behind as she walks about the space, constantly becomes caught in the flooring.

Less successful than the medical aspect is the metaphysical one. More specifically, the scenes where Davies has to portray Bearing’s earlier self, the Donne specialist lecturing on his Holly Sonnet number 5, If Poisonous Minerals, or trying to instil an understanding of his famous wit her undergraduates.

Davies never convinces as a Donne specialist. There’s no spark of infectious enthusiasm for the poetry, no engagement with the audience so that they come to understand for themselves Edson’s staggering success in using the poems as a conceit - a sustained parallel - for Bearing’s situation.

That said, this is still a moving and thought-provoking production which is well worth seeking out.

Continues until Saturday 14 November


Edinburgh Evening News
You'll need your Wit about you with EGTG
Friday, November 6, 2009
By Liam Rudden

AWARD-WINNING playwright Margaret Edson became a clerk on a cancer and AIDS ward at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland, USA, in 1985.

Fourteen years later she won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Wit, which follows the journey of Professor Vivian Bearing, a woman diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer - there is no Stage V.

Edson actually wrote Wit eight years earlier, having spent just 12 months at the National Cancer Institute. "I learned so much there. The nurses really wanted me to help make things run smoothly, so they taught me a lot. I observed the people there, the patients and families, coping with cancer. I learned about character and about courage," she once recalled.

In Wit, which Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group present at the St. Bride's Centre next week, poetry not people has always been her priority. Faced with the inevitable progress of the disease and an experimental treatment, she applies her customary critical analysis to her predicament and is shocked to discover the failings of her normally reliable intellectual security - words. As she encounters alien emotions as she seeks to understand and accept her ever-growing need for forgiveness, dignity and compassion.

Funny and sad, tragic and life-affirming, complex and simple, Wit is an exploration of what transpires when words finally fail. Of how, inevitably, art and science are equally useless, equally detached.

Yet this is no tearful lecture on how to die. Instead, Wit is a dry-eyed lesson on how to live; with simplicity and kindness.

Not suitable for children under the age of 14 years.

Wit, St Brides Centre,
Orwell Terrace,
Wednesday - Saturday
8pm, £9, 0131-473-2000