The production now on stage at MCC Theater fully substantiates that description. There are, in fact, three distinct albeit intertwined themes in first-time playwright Margaret Edson's Wit, and each affords a strong reason to rush to see it. One week ago, I reviewed When the Bough Breaks , a new play about a couple that must confront the awful circumstances of the premature birth of a brain damaged baby. I confess I was hesitant to experience it even vicariously.
Wit has no such diversions.
Yet the central story of Wit is not somber but indeed, as the title would tease, witty. It is as if Dr. Bearing videotaped her bout with terminal cancer, and then edited and narrated it from her final resting place. Edson has somehow, remarkably, found a voice for Dr. Bearing that is at peace, and Chalfant has assumed it with brilliance. No matter how closely the tragedy of cancer touches the living, there is a sense of remove that cannot be avoided. Wit is just as astute in its observation of how Dr. Bearing lived her life, the play's second but no less compelling theme.