Wit

THE ENGLISH PATIENT Patricia Donegan, left, comforts Main.

Photo: Eric Nerger

Wit is not about wit, or words, or even cancer. Ultimately, it’s about what happens when our greatest power—in this case, ferocious intellect—cannot save us from death. Edson’s 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner follows Vivian Bearing (Main), a top-of-the-field scholar of the work of 17th-century metaphysical poet John Donne, as she faces virulent ovarian cancer instead of dozing undergraduates. Since she can decode the density of Donne (who, most famously, reminded us that “no man is an island”), Vivian explicates—in a blunt, fourth-wall–breaking series of scenes—eight months of experimental treatment. As she is shuttled through labs and sickbeds, the brittle, brilliant woman masters this sea change until she can’t control the swells of pain, and her verbal acuity—demonstrated in side-scenes of her interrogations of doctors, students and Donne’s Holy Sonnets—is reduced to just two names: hers and her doctor’s.

Gawlik’s searing but subtle rendering of Vivian’s journey from control to “corny,” as she puts it—a journey that’s endured alone, except for her breezy, gentle nurse (Carini)—dances on the edge of devastating. Moments of agonized pain are tempered by wondrously detailed performances from a skilled cast (particularly Mihlfried’s consummate turn as an equally egotistic and awkward research fellow) that supports Main’s comprehensively, courageously etched portrait of Vivian’s unflagging and cynical wit. Avoiding her piercing gaze is as impossible as evading, as Donne puts it, “gluttonous death.” Gift has crafted not an instructive tale of how to live life—Vivian is often downright unlikable—but, from its acidic beginning to its incandescent end, a story about vitality and control, and the loss—unavoidable for all of us—of both.