Sue Ott Rowlands portrays English professor Vivian Bearing in Wit. Vivian, a scholar of John Donne, comes to terms with her own mortality while being treated for ovarian cancer.       By Al Zanyk

Wit examines life with humor and intelligence

Wit may be a play about death, but life steals the show.

Equity guest artist Sue Ott Rowlands stars in Ohio State's production of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, running through May 19 in the Roy Bowen Theatre. Ohio State's production is the central Ohio premiere.

"This is a story about a woman who learns to live," said Rowlands, who is an associate professor of theatre at Ohio State. Rowlands plays the role of Vivian Bearing, a 50-year-old professor who is undergoing treatment for advanced ovarian cancer. As an academic, Vivian has devoted her intellectual talents to examining John Donne's portrayal of life and death in his Holy Sonnets. As a cancer patient, Vivian must come to terms with those themes at a personal level.

Margaret Edson's script deftly portrays emotion, but avoids becoming sappy, Rowlands said. "It's deep subject matter, but just when it's starting to get maudlin, she moves away. The play has a tremendous amount of humor," she said.

Rowlands saw Kathleen Chalfant perform in Wit two years ago, during its critically acclaimed New York run.

"As I left the theater in New York, I walked across town to catch a bus. It was snowing, and I had these tears streaming down my face. It wasn't tears of sadness. It was more like, ÔI just want to appreciate life. It is just so good,'" she said.

A year later, Rowlands and Lesley Ferris, chair of theatre and director of Wit, decided the play would be a good acting project for Rowlands. Rowlands has directed several productions for the department, but this will be her first Columbus performance.

The play centers on irony.

"Here's a woman who thinks she knows all about life and death, because of her work as a scholar," Rowlands said. "But when it comes to your own death, there's a process of learning and coming to terms with the choices you've made. You find out so much about life when you consider death."

Preparing for and performing this role has been a learning experience for Rowlands, who said using roles to explore parts of yourself is one of the great things about acting. "It's not about hiding parts of yourself, but revealing facets of yourself appropriate to the role," she said.

She began her research last summer. In January, she began meeting with Larry Copeland, William Greenville Pace III chair in cancer research and head of gynecology at the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, and with some of his cancer patients. She also worked closely with Phoebe Spinrad, associate professor of English, to learn about John Donne.

Sitting with patients while they underwent chemotherapy not only gave Rowlands insight into what her character experiences, but led to her rethinking some of her own philosophies on life.

"It reminded me that you don't take life for granted," she said. "You live in the moment and keep your eyes on the truly important things. It really made me appreciate human courage and the human spirit's ability to be tenacious in choosing life and finding humor in the darkest times."

Diving into Donne's poetry to better understand Vivian's examination of his work also proved to be revelatory.

"A part of me is fascinated with language and words," Rowlands said. Metaphysical poets, though, had never been on her reading list. "I'm just enamored now with John Donne's poetry and I didn't know anything about it before."

Rowlands' method of working is admirable, Ferris said.

"It's very thorough. She does a huge amount of research and she's very specific in the details and choices she's making. She's always asking herself, myself and the playwright, in absentia, very penetrating questions. The model she's presenting to the students is just tremendous," Ferris said.

The role has one facet that an actress can't leave behind when she walks out of the theater: a shaved head.

"I found that -- and I'm sure people who undergo chemotherapy know more about this -- it makes people uncomfortable. It makes people not want to look at you," said Rowlands, who shaved her head for the first time in early April for publicity photos. "At first it made me feel very vulnerable and I found myself not wanting to go to the store or out because I felt self-conscious. Now, I don't really think about it. I'm thankful because I have a choice to do this -- do the role or not do the role. It must be different for women who don't have the choice."

Unlike the New York production, which was performed on a large proscenium stage, Ohio State's performance makes use of a three-sided thrust stage.

"My character spends most of the play talking to the audience. It's really such a joy because I have them all around me. Our space is much more intimate," Rowlands said.

The student actors, sometimes dressed as Vivian's students, sometimes as technicians or clinical fellows, will move furniture pieces like hospital beds on and off stage for different scenes. As actors, they underwent training to learn how to conduct the many medical procedures depicted -- everything from taking a pulse to performing a pelvic exam.

"We're making an attempt through staging to replicate how Vivian, the main character, is shunted through the medical system, as well as how she is looking back on her life," Ferris said.

The play traces Vivian's cancer treatment, with flashbacks interspersed showing her former life in the classroom as an instructor and as a student, and also includes a scene with her father when she was a child.

The recent HBO movie based on the play, starring Emma Thompson, tells a different story than the stage production, Rowlands said.

"The HBO version was pretty much a story about cancer," she said. "The play adds dimension to the movie, incorporating more humor and delving deeper into the poetry of John Donne."

By creating tension between opposing forces, the play echoes Donne's poetry, Spinrad said.

"Things can be serious and a joke at the same time. This is what Donne does in many of his poems," she said. "Vivian gets caught up in the cerebral questions of the poetry, but it's not just a puzzle; it's also about life."

In one of Donne's Holy Sonnets, he writes: "Death, be not proud É One short sleep past, we wake eternally,/And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die."

That same message of victory over death is exemplified by Vivian in Wit.

"I think that's why this play is so uplifting," Rowlands said. "Death cannot kill the human spirit."

For more information

Performances: 8 p.m. May 10-12 and 15-19 and 2 p.m. May 12 Roy Bowen Theatre, Drake Performance and Event Center Free post-performance discussions:

• May 10: Phoebe Spinrad, associate professor of English

• May 15: Carole Anderson, dean of nursing

• May 17: Larry Copeland, William Greenville Pace III chair in cancer research and head of gynecology at The James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute

Call 292-2295 for tickets

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