Unwitting Redemption in Margaret Edson's Wit

Abstract

Winner of 1999 Pulitzer Prize, Margaret Edson's medical drama Wit has garnered nearly unanimous acclaim. play's honors include Drama Desk, Dramatists Guild, New York Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle, Los Angeles Drama Critics, and Newsday Oppenheimer awards. Reviewers, too, have had high praise for show. Lancet critic Bertie Bregman lauds Edson for having turned her work experience in cancer research hospital into a production of uncommon emotional force that offers, along with chilling awareness of how bondage to pure intellect can desiccate life.... more of intelligence coexisting with tenderness and love. While Bregman situates play's redemptive vision in its pairing of mind and heart, American Theatre reviewer Pamela Renner claims that Wit's ... takes an unexpected form. Renner asserts that in Wit an oncology nurse's willingness to speak truth to Professor Vivian Bearing, Donne scholar dying of ovarian cancer, gives patient-protagonist the courage to make crucial decision about her (35-36). Renner thus situates redemption in honest communication. That critics describe Wit as play about redemption readily apparent. nature of that redemption, however, difficult for many of them to describe. Journalist Adrienne Martini confesses in American Theatre to having felt put on spot in conversation about subject with dramatist: According to Edson, there more to play than most of critical response has acknowledged. The play about redemption, and I'm surprised no one mentions she says, fixing her bright eyes on me. I feel as if I've been asked question in school and have no idea what answer should be. Suddenly, it easy to picture her in classroom. Grace she clarifies, is opportunity to experience God in spite of yourself, which what Dr. Bearing ultimately achieves. As for herself, Edson professes to Christian faith, but declines to elaborate about it. (22) Edson's caginess about Christianity more than promotional gimmick. In part, it reflects her appropriate reluctance to dictate Wit's meaning. It's not my place to tell people what play's about. I have to explain it, I haven't done my job, she said in telephone interview. Also at work, though, Edson's deep ambivalence about orthodox Christian faith, despite her high regard for Christ, whom she described in same interview as being in a club of one. In conversation with Betty Carter for Books and Culture, she asserted: If you're completely united with God, you don't need religion (26). Indeed, Wit's final scene depicts moment devoid of any specific religious association. In addition to its ambiguous treatment of religion, play reveals Edson's related ambivalence about life of mind. Wit's protagonist, Vivian Bearing, ultimately eschews poetry of her research subject, John Donne, for children's book titled Runaway Bunny. That choice mirrors Edson's own decision to abandon graduate studies to teach kindergarten. After studying Renaissance history at Smith College, she worked as clerk for hospital cancer and AIDS unit before writing Wit in 1991. While pursuing master's degree in literature at Georgetown University in 1992, she began teaching English as second language in Washington, D.C., public schools. In 1998 she moved to Atlanta, where she teaches five-year-olds. Few kindergarten teachers are likely to write about intricacies and implications of Donne scholarship, but Wit reflects its author's unusual personal struggle to come to terms with both academia and orthodoxy. In play Donne serves to symbolize both intellectual life and Christian faith. play's apparent rejection of Donne has prompted First Things reviewer Carol Iannone to accuse playwright of being both anti-intellectual and anti-religious. …