WIT: LIFE LESSONS Time Off Magazine July 21
2004

Bunbury
Theatre Company, modestly founded in a Shorncliffe
backyard in 2000, comes to prominence with its current profit-share staging of
Margaret Edson’s Wit. The play proves big budgets and imposing venues aren’t
essential to the making of thoroughly good and satisfying theatre.

American playwright Edson worked on perfecting
Wit during the 90s, through fringe
and off-Broadway stages to its eventual full Broadway opening and the 1999
Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Jack Bradford, director of Bunbury’s
version, saw an interview with the playwright and the Alliance Theatre
production in New York,
where the richness of Wit’s
language and its relevant story of dealing with cancer provided him with
“a magical experience”.

Now magic is happening on the Metro Studio stage, as a strong mix of
well established and lesser-known Brisbane
actors bring off one of the most luminous plays seen in Brisbane for quite a while.

Local actor Caroline Kennison triumphs in the
lead role of Professor Vivian Bearing, PhD, whose journey through the final
nine months of ovarian cancer functions as the ‘spine’ of the play.
But this is no sentimental journey. Vivian Bearing is among the strongest of
strong women and her dry wit has the audience seesawing gently between
compassion and laughter.

Edson has fittingly made the
highly intelligent Bearing a world authority on the Holy Sonnets of early 17th
Century metaphysical poet John Donne, Dean of St Paul’s in London from 1621 and
writer of “sensual, passionate, witty and deeply religious” poems.
The lecturer delights in exercising her own wit while expounding (to her
students and audience) on the literary ‘wit’ of Donne’s
poems.

Bearing’s power and intellectual confidence in the hospital and
lecture room are expressed in a marvellous symbiosis of actor, character and
poetry. But, along with her students, the teacher has important life-lessons to
learn.

On a simple hospital room set (by Shane Rodwell),
Bearing agrees to undergo nine months of full-dosage chemotherapy, a feat no
patient has yet seen through to the end. Kennison
absorbs us into her character’s emotional journey through unbelievable
pain and scarcely admitted loneliness. Bearing’s strong-mindedness
formerly showed itself in a lack of sympathy with her students. Now, throughout
her present trial, she has to swallow the bitter pill of increasing dependence
on the care and loving kindness of others.

The fine cast includes David Clendinning as
Bearing’s supportive Dr Kelekian, Miranda Deakin as sympathetic young nurse Susie, Michael Priest as
the patient’s cancer specialist Jason Posner – ironically an
ex-student who has learned Bearing’s  lessons in ambition and
perfectionism all too well – and Kaye Stevenson as her former teacher and
later friend Evelyn Ashford, who shares a scene of almost unbearable tenderness
with her ex-pupil. Ensemble actors Michael Churven,
Julie Cotterell, Kate Joseph and David Knijnenburg also contribute to the overall impact and
beauty of the play.

Bunbury Theatre Company’s
production of Wit, by Margaret Edson, runs at Metro Arts Studio until Saturday Jul 24,
Tue-Sat 8pm. Matinees: Thu 11am, Sat 2pm. Bookings: 3321 1814.

MARY NEMETH