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| Edinburgh : A&E : Theatre: Reviews |
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Wit
- Tour of Scottish Premiere.
From the very start playwright Edson, director Gaynor MacFarlane and actor Alexandra Mathie ensure you are engaged. For this play could be a bit of a turn off, dealing with death, metaphysics and what used to be called "trouble down there" this side of the Atlantic. With Alexandra Mathie's Vivian we get all the character's brittle strength, full of her refreshingly sardonic tone and phrasing as she says, "I think I die at the end." Just another case of Stage 4 ovarian cancer according to her medical notes, Professor Vivian Bearing is a successful academic. You can tell it in the precise way she talks, as she defends herself from her life's plight by examining the way medicine uses language. Her mentor E.M. Ashford, a beautifully judged performance by Joanna Tope, is an academic of an even older time. Ashford takes, in one of play's flashbacks, the young Bearing to task on a version she has used of one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets and its "hysterical punctutation." Bearing goes on to become an expert in Donne and his holy sonnets but not in other things. Intellect though seems to be enough till at 50 she is told of her soon coming end. Incurable though her condition is, the scholar agrees to be the subject of research for the good of others. She has confrontations with the world of the hospital and her clinical trials, commiserating with the Consultant, Professor Kelekian over their blind (Kelekian's) and deaf (Baring's) students, and a lowly paid nurse, the noteworthy Molly Innes, who sees Baring as more than a body containing an interesting disease. The research doctor, Jason Prosner,played by the increasingly interesting James MacKenzie, was one of Barings' students, he's the scientific equivalent to her distancing Arts academic. Awed by her as her student, now it's only her tumour which really holds his attention. It's very witty indeed, metaphorical and metaphysical too. Sometimes whole scenes make you rock with laughter. How misplaced the vocabulary of medical treatment is. How and why do we let it be? Vivian could be a woman hard to like, with her unemotional approach to life, but her spirit and Mathie's performance have us following every facet of this text, full of well crafted philosophical intuition giving it dramatic life. It's a fascinating play and production. But even more important than its cerebral riches, it has a live heart pumping full of the paradox that life's a bitch and you're a long time dead. © Thelma Good 12 March 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com The Award For Best Female Performance went to Alexandra Mathie as Dr Vivian Bearing in Wit, the Pulitzer prize winning play by Margaret Edson, in a touring production by Stellar Quines the only Scottish theatre company who facilitate, nurtutre and promote primarily female artists. They are celebrating their 10th year of existence in 2003 and whose next production is Sweet Fanny Adams In Eden a site specific work in the new created Scottish Plant Collectors Garden at Pitlochry Festival Theatre this July. Cast: Vivian Bearing - Alexandra Mathie, Harvey/Mr Bearing - Jonathan Battersby, Jason Posner - Jonathan Mackenzie, Susie Monahan - Molly Innes, E.M.Ashford - Joanna Tope, Technicians/Students - Natalie Bennett, Chris Young and Jessica Richards. Tour Details of Stellar Quines Theatre Company's production of Wit . Tour begins 11 -15 March at 8pm Glasgow Tron Theatre 0141 552 4267 18 March at 8pm Plockton Plockton Village Hall 01599 534 702 19 March at 7:30pm Isle Of Skye Aros Theatre 01478 613 649 20 March 8pm Aultbea Aultbea Community Hall Tickets at Door 21 March at 7:45pm Ullapool macphail Centre 01854 612 103 22 March at 8pm Ardross Ardross Community Hall 01349 880 591 26 March at 8pm Inverness Eden Court Theatre 01463 234 234 28 March at 7:30pm Kirkcaldy Adam Smith Theatre 01592 412 929 29 March at 7:30pm Berwick-Upon-Tweed Maltings Art Centre 01289 330 999 2 April at 7:30pm Falkirk Town Hall 01324 506 850 3 April at 8pm Stirling macrobert Arts Centre 01786 466 666 4 April at 7:30pm Castle Douglas Lochside Theatre 01556 504 506 5 April 7:30pm Dumfries Theatre Royal 01387 247 780 16 April 7:30pm North Edinburgh Arts Centre Pilton 0131 315 2151 17 & 18 April at St Andrews Byre Theatre 01334 475 000 19 April at 7:30pm Musselburgh Brunton Theatre 0131 665 2240 22 - 26 April at Edinburgh Traverse Theatre 0131 228 1404 Tour ends
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Wit - Stellar Quines Theatre Company.