Wit Play Summary

On October 24th, 2015 at 3:00PM in the Tarbutton Theater, I attended the showing of the play Wit by Margaret Edson, performed by Oxford College students and directed by Dr. Clark Lemons. This one act play followed a middle-aged woman named Vivian Bearing who was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic ovarian cancer. She reflects back on various aspects of her life throughout the play during her time at the hospital and through this the audience finds out more about what kind of person she is, who influenced her to become who she is, and how the doctors and nurses treat her as they try to save her life. This play was represented extremely well over all, starting with the set design. The stage props and design was minimal but the way they were carried on and off stage in a swift manner was greatly accomplished. The set design for Vivian’s hospital room included all the main props that stand out in actual hospitals with the bed, the whiteboard chart, the IV bags, tubes, and vomit box. I also loved the scenes where Vivian was first getting her checkups done with examinations, x-rays, and CT scans. The extras in the

I loved the placement of different props on stage, like how the first scene where Vivian is first diagnosed was off center to the right. The single spotlights added more emphasis on certain points in the play and I thought that added more to the environment, especially when Vivian would have another monologue and she would step forward towards the audience while the extras moved around the props in the back to change the scene. For sound, I thought the background music for the ending scene really captured the mood for the death of Vivian Bearing. It wasn’t exactly a grieving style of music but it was calming at the same time. Also, the lighting and sound effects for the x-ray scene was outstanding. I wasn’t expecting the design set to look so professional, but it was all put together