Word: witting
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...would hope the medical community could provide some of the support she lacks in her personal life. Instead, Wit depicts a series of cold, impersonal doctors and technicians whose primary concern, beneath the senseless formalities they are required to spew, is research. In all fairness, each does work with relative competence to save Dr. Bearing's life in the face of metastasized cancer, but only one character attempts to salvage the vanishing shreds of the patient's dignity in the process. Susie (Lisa Tharps) gives a moving performance as the simple-minded nurse who ultimately proves to be more intelligent...
...addition to Susie, Dr. Ashford (Diane Kagan), Dr. Bearing's old college literature professor, makes a poignant appearance at the deathbed of her old pupil in doubtlessly the most inspired moment of Wit. Kagan performs admirably as a soothing, serene presence in the life of a woman deep in physical pain and admittedly afraid of dying. She comforts Vivian as well as the audience, now taken by the increasingly realistic scenario that Dr. Bearing confronts...
From beginning to end, Wit is relentless in its presentation of the horrors of cancer. There is no intermission breaking the intensity of Dr. Bearing's two-hour performance. There is no avoiding her presence. Even the actual theater reinforces this feeling of intimacy. Standing beside the mammoth Wang Theater only reinforces the small size of the Wilbur, undoubtedly one of the smallest performance centers on Tremont. Thus from the moment Dr. Bearing takes the stage and greets the audience with the abrupt "How are you doing today?" we are drawn into her very personal experience...
Sadly, despite its insightful exploration of terminal illness and all its repercussions, Wit cannot offer a solution, a cure. Dr. Bearing informs us two minutes into the play that she will ultimately die. Perhaps an answer to some of the dilemmas appears in the John Donne sonnets that provide Dr. Bearing with a coping mechanism for cancer. A comma is the only punctuation separating life from death in the verses of Donne. There is no conclusive period, no exclamation point separating the two juxtaposed thoughts; only a simple, smooth transitional comma. Of course, cancer is not the simplest or smoothest...
...Passage to Juneau is intelligently written, with plenty of dry wit and humor as well as some reflective thoughts about nature and its inhabitants. The novel is not an account of an adventure at sea; instead, Raban finds his subjects in the past and in isolated towns. Although the novel is subtitled The Sea and Its Meaning, the waters of Alaska are largely peripheral to Raban's voyage of self-discovery...