REVIEW: Guest Reviewer Sienna Brown Shares Her Thoughts on WIT

Friday 8th March 2024, Lennox Theatre Riverside, Parramatta

Brilliant. Intense. Radiant. Nuanced. Words and more words, said, read and deconstructed in WIT - Riverside Theatres Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about life, death, and the significance of a semicolon. Written over 20 years ago by Margaret Edison, the play still resonates today given that all of us, at some point in our futures, will face the inevitable. Our own mortality, when, we will have to deal with the ultimate questions: what did we do with our life? Did it amount to anything?

WIT sets out to deal with these questions and centres them around Vivian Bearing who at 50, appears to be in the prime of her life and at the height of a stellar academic career. A highly respected, professor of literature, at the start of the play, Vivian discovers she has stage four ovarian cancer, with just a few weeks to live.

Brought to life by Cheryl Ward’s brilliant, exquisite, humour filled portrayal, we are seduced into fully engaging with Vivian, as she traverses the highs and lows of reflecting on her life’s work which has been dedicated exclusively to the pursuit of academic excellence and the intricacies of the English language. Especially the use of ‘wit’ in the metaphysical poetry of John Donne with whom until discovering her illness, not only her exterior, but interior life has been preoccupied. 

We also get to see into the behaviours of the other characters, the doctor and nurses whose varied agendas are not about saving or supporting Vivian through her illness, but using her as a grand experiment. How tough is she really? How high of a dose can she withstand? A toughness she once used against her students, in her rigorous and uncompromising teaching.

As she moves closer and closer to death, Vivian begins to understand the real importance of life is centred not just in the mind, but in the heart, the giving, but also accepting of human warmth and love.

If this all sounds rather depressing, it’s not. In fact, there were many laugh out loud moments. So while WIT may be a play about death, it essentially teaches us how to live. At the centre of which is the giving of kindness, a stepping stone to grace.

Helen Tonkin’s expert directing guides us seamlessly through the play, keeping the action flowing within the simplicity of Victor Kalka set and lightening design of the black box of the stage, filled with only a white sheeted, hospital bed, IV drip and four white boards used cleverly to depict Xray machines; as well as at the height of Vivian’s treatment, an actual whiteboard containing the words of Donne’s poetry.  

This is a brilliant production and cast with the supporting roles played by Kyra Belford-Thomas, Yannick Lawry, Hailey McQueen, Helen Tonkin, Sayuri Narroway and Joseph Tanti. All of whom shined. But the biggest cheer must go to the tour de force performance by Cheryl Ward.

Photography @ Luke Holland

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