Directed by Casandra Canales and produced by Allie Howland, Wit will be performed in the Texas A&M International Sam Johnson Experimental Theater January 9 through January 19.
Wit examines that which makes life worth living through an exploration of the vital importance of human relationships and the unifying experience of mortality. Edson’s work assesses life and death with poignancy, humor, and compassion.
The story’s protagonist is Vivian Bearing, a brilliant and resolute professor of English Literature and an expert on the Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer, Bearing consents to an experimental chemotherapy treatment that, though it may not save her, will provide research data for the future of oncology.
Bearing braves eight rounds of chemotherapy, but is told the cancer continues its march to her mortality. It is through the agony of dying that she learns a lesson of compassion in the mercy of her nurse, Susie Monahan, and her mentor, Professor E.M. Ashford. In a final acceptance of her fate, Professor Bearing institutes a Do Not Resuscitate order, finally succumbing to death, which she has studied so fastidiously in the teaching of Donne’s work.
General admission tickets are available at the door for $15.
