This post was written by Hatchet reporter Kelsey Renz.
Weeks before one of the country’s largest efforts to fight cancer begins, the fight is being brought – more intimately – to the stage.
Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize winning drama, “Wit,” presented by the Generic Theatre Company, tells the heart-wrenching tale of protagonist Vivian Bearing, an accomplished scholar and professor of 17th-century literature who has been diagnosed with stage-four ovarian cancer. Her chances of recovery are slim to none.
The story comes to Lisner Downstage just two weeks before GW’s Relay For Life will unite students in the fight against cancer.
The show’s director, senior Samantha Stone, knew she wanted to direct “Wit” after reading it and seeing it performed a few years ago.
“I knew I wanted to pick something that I just really loved and could really connect to and kind of was at home to me. I’ve had family that have suffered through cancer and it’s just something that I thought was a really important story to tell,” Stone, a former Hatchet reporter, said.
The play is constructed in series of flashbacks that begin the moment Vivian is told she has “less than two hours to live.”
She addresses her audience throughout, narrating the horrors of chemotherapy and the strong feelings of despair that come along with it.
“After rehearsals every day it was kind of rough but I just had to pull myself together. I haven’t watched a sad or serious movie in a very long time because of this,” freshman Kait Haire, who portrays Bearing, said
Yet “Wit” is about much more than cancer and the havoc it wreaks on the mind and body.
“When people ask us what the play is about, we don’t say it’s about cancer, we say it’s about transformation. And I think it’s a simple message of the importance of human kindness and humanity, and being able to put that before anything else,” Marissa Price, a sophomore who plays Nurse Susie, said.
According to Stone, the cast and crew are in the process of assembling their own group to participate in the Relay for Life. They will be called “Team Wit.”
“Wit” premiered on Thursday and will also be performed on Friday and Saturday at 7 and 10 p.m. each night. Tickets are $5.
