Vivian Bearing is a PH. D, and that is very important to her. She must remind everyone about it most of the time. But in the place and position where she is, that doesn’t count too much. She is not in the command of the situation. She is not the “Doctor” of this situation, this position belongs to a MD, and not her, since she is sick in a hospital. This is probably the first feeling that striker the character early in the play “W;t”, by Margaret Edson.
Vivian has lived her whole life as the commandant, now, facing an advanced metastatic ovarian cancer, the character is forced to re-exam a lot of things in her life. For one, she must start to open up. That shell where she has lived her whole life isn’t a protection anymore. Highly intellectually, a John Donne scholar, she is forced now to deal with emotional issues – things she has always avoided.
In her journey towards death and self-discovery, Vivan becomes another person. The reader/audience of “W;t” is invited to go in a painful, but beautiful, journey alongside the character. Not only does she bare herself physically, but also metaphorically, once the character has to come to terms with problems she assumed forgotten.
Edson writes the play astutely, placing it mostly in the hospital where Vivian is taking her treatment. Some flashbacks are useful to give more insight of who is the Professor and why she has become who she is. Donne’s poems are efficiently used since the poet wrote exactly about what the main character is going through – the metaphorical experience of abandoning life and moving towards death. In one of his poems discussed in the play, the difference between life and death is just a simple comma, as if the punctuation mark represents the last breath itself.
The play writer has a special gift to portray the internal life and anxiety of her characters using monologues. The text never comes as boring or fake. Vivian’s pain and joys are as real as her condition. “W;t” never becomes corny, and it is extremely beautiful and emotional. Edson has succeeded in blending both heart and mind, bringing to life a very complex character. The back of the book informs that she has worked in the cancer and AIDS unit of a research hospital. This background is very helpful to her to make believable the whole routine and Vivian’s state of mind and body.
For its complex and powerful portrait of a soul, “W;t” was awarded with the Pulitzer Prize and many other prizes when it was staged. All kudos are more than fair to this magnificent work, that just like Donne’s poems will become a classic, to be studied and reverenced for many years to come.
Originalmente publicado em www.Amazon.com em 11/08/2006
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