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OSF has dramatic hit with `Wit' By Al Reiss for the Mail Tribune ASHLAND -- "I'll never forget the time I found out I had cancer." "Never" is not a long time in the future of Vivian Bearing in the play, "Wit." Presented in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Black Swan theater, "Wit" is an intellectual and emotional challenge for both actors and audience. Depending on your own life experience, you may not be able to sit through it. In an ironic way, that is a compliment to the power of the play. Margaret Edson's first play received the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in drama. Edson is a kindergarten teacher in Atlanta. She wants to continue in that profession rather than pursue her guaranteed career in playwriting. In "Wit," Vivian tells her own story to the audience. She is 50, a professor of 17th century poetry, specializing in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne. She is undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer, which has spread throughout her body. She says, "I have stage-four metastatic ovarian cancer. There is no stage five." In lesser hands this play could have drowned in the sentimentality of a "disease of the week" TV movie. But in script and production, it rises to important, modern dramatic literature. In its developmental form, the play has been around through most of the 1990s. It will continue for a long time to come. Vivian, the center of the play, is brought to vivid, if tragic, life by Linda Alper in a spellbinding performance. Alper first appeared with OSF in 1980. Her maturing career, her experience, give Vivian the flavor of dry, vintage wine, the sunlight of afternoon as Vivian goes, not gently, into her good night. As the professor, Vivian tells us about irony. She delivers sarcasm justified by the losing hand that life has dealt her. But can she play it in a winning way? That's what the play is about. Edson makes Donne's metaphorical poetry a major part of the play. In flashback scenes, Vivian and students discuss the ways in which the poet conceals himself within his work, hiding. For all her candor, we feel that there is more we could learn about Vivian. But that also could be Edson in control of her material. Given her use of metaphor, the name Vivian Bearing appears to be not an accidental choice. "Vivian" traces back to the Latin word for "alive." Alper brings that quality to the role: life in its glories and pain. Following the author's instructions, certain roles are doubled. The same actor (Tony DeBruno) plays Dr. Kelekian, chief of medical oncology, in charge of Vivian's treatment, and also her father, Mr. Bearing. Dr. Kelekian, also 50, is reluctant to call the Ph.D ``doctor." U. Jonathan Toppo plays Dr. Jason Posner, 28, and Kelekian's assistant. Both are patronizing toward Vivian -- but at least Dr. Posner calls her "professor." Dr. Kelekian prescribes a prolonged, eight-cycle regimen of high-dosage chemotherapy. The effects of the experimental treatment could be lethal. But he says that she must commit to the full treatment with its effects of internal damage to her system and loss of hair. She consents. The most compassionate medical person in the play is Susie Monahan, primary nurse, played with warmth and understanding by Deidre Henry.Privately, Susie talks with Vivian about the inevitable last moment of her life, when Vivian won't be able to speak for herself. Henry realizes a high emotional moment when Susie tries to correct a medical error. Catherine Coulson plays two sides of E.M. Ashford, a Ph.D. who is a stern professor to Vivian Bearing the student and a caring friend to Dr. Bearing the colleague. Four actors play multiple roles as lab technicians, clinical fellows, students and a code team: Andy Carey, Jason Equerra, Chanda Hartman and Alicia Mandelkow. Directed by John Dillon, the play, just under two hours, moves quickly, without intermission, with swift scene changes on the spare, mobile set. The set adapts to offices, a classroom, examination rooms and a hospital room. The production is particularly effective in the intimate Black Swan space. Dillon himself is a cancer survivor. He said at a recent news conference that when he first heard the diagnosis, he thought that was the end of his life. He said that Edson's play told him it needn't be. Al Reiss is a freelance writer and critic who lives in Jacksonville. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA