WIT (2001) HBO-TV
by Joe Steiff

HBO attempts to transfer a stirring stage drama to the small screen...

Originally written in 1991 by Margaret Edson, now a kindergarten teacher, the play remained unproduced for 4 years and wasn't staged in New York until 1999, after which it promptly won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Wit is a remarkable commentary on not just the process of dying but the process of caring for the dying, all couched within layers of the literary devices, irony and wordplay. In effect, wit. Sounds rather academic, doesn't it?

Which makes it all the more appropriate that the main character is a scholar and professor of poetry, particularly John Donne's (perhaps best known to the non-academic reader for the poem beginning "Death be not proud"). Vivian Bearing. Dying of ovarian cancer.

Not your typical night out at the theater, if your notion of theater is The Lion King.

If I had to characterize the difference between watching Wit on the stage versus watching the recent HBO adaptation starring Emma Thompson, I'd have to say that it's like the difference between the comma and semicolon that haunts Vivian as she submits to an intensive chemotherapy regimen. Seeing Wit performed on stage creates a different understanding of the material than when watching HBO's adaptation.

Vivian learns as a young college student that substituting a semicolon for a comma in an inauthentic translation of one of Donne's poems changes the meaning of the lines from one of everlasting life to one of finite life. So does the meaning of Wit change depending upon whether you see it on stage or on television.

Small choices throughout HBO's adaptation create this difference. Such as when we first see Vivian without her ubiquitous ball cap (that covers her head now bald from the chemotherapy) -- in the film, we see Thompson's bald head uncovered about half way through; in the live play, Vivian does not take off her hat until the very last scene.

Some of these choices are a result of the medium itself, the expectation or assumption that film represents literal reality. Efforts in film to suggest another reality or to engage the audience's imagination in ways similar to that of live theater often fall flat. So it's not surprising that a filmed version of Wit would struggle with how to portray the ending.

If anyone would be up to the task, it would seem to be Emma Thompson. Not only an impressive actor, she has proved her skill as a writer not just with her adaptation of Sense & Sensibility but as well with her wittily written speeches when accepting awards for that very screenplay.

She and co-screenwriter/director Mike Nichols have indeed minimized those few small leanings towards cliché in bringing Wit to television. And as with the stage play, some of the most powerful moments are the quietist, simple gestures or a human touch. Though I originally could not imagine another Vivian besides the one I saw on stage, Thompson creates an exceptional performance. The supporting cast is quite good as well. And one has to admire the courage of casting Christopher Lloyd as Vivian's doctor, though I found it hard to shake Back To The Future associations.

The real standout performance in HBO's Wit, however, is Audra McDonald as the nurse, Susie. Each of her scenes brings the much-needed human touch that Vivian craves but cannot quite ask for and that the doctors seem oblivious to. Susie's gentleness, concern for what's best for her patients and her ability to laugh at herself stand in stark contrast to the egos of the doctors. One of the most revealing and touching scenes is when Vivian asks if her morphine drip will have a soporific effect. Another is when Sally adjusts the sheets after Vivian has died.

Despite these strong performances, the film gets off to a shaky start. The stage play begins with a direct address to the audience; direct address in film is always a difficult technique to accomplish effectively. So the decision to begin with Vivian's diagnosis in the doctor's office seems a logical reworking of the beginning of the play, but it doesn't quite grab us either filmicly or narratively. The extreme close-ups of Lloyd's and Thompson's faces seem flat, distant, unengaging. And not in a character-subjectivity POV kind of way.

Once we cut to Vivian in the hospital for her first round of highly toxic chemotherapy, the play's nuances and power pull into focus as the film begins to employ direct camera address. More so than on stage, this direct address here hints that perhaps we are simply a figment of Vivian's imagination, a hallucination much in the way her memories of her classroom seem to be.

Throughout the hospital scenes and Vivian's memories of the classroom, Thompson and Nichol's adaptation seems to benefit the material. Nichol's direction allows for emphases not possible when watching an entire stage, some of the most effective scenes being the young research intern, Jason, having to examine Vivian, whose class he has taken; the Grand Rounds; and Vivian being put in isolation. All in all, a fairly faithful adaptation with strengths in its own right.

The differences between the live performance and the film version of Wit come into sharpest relief at the end. HBO's version is trapped in the literalness of the moment, the Code team trying to resuscitate Vivian, ripping away at her gown in what seems to be an effort to demonstrate that Thompson did not change the ending for fear of baring her breasts.

Watching Wit's ending on television, I was strangely unmoved. Distant. At first I thought it was simply because I had already seen the play, so I already knew the story. Or perhaps that watching TV is less emotionally engaging than being in an audience with a live actor in front of me. But then I realized that there is a fundamental difference between the end of Wit the film and Wit the stage play. The ending of HBO's version becomes less about Vivian's change and more about Jason admitting that he is wrong. The ending of the stage play seems to be about something altogether different.

During the last 5 minutes of the stage play, when everything has built to a ferocious intensity, the actor playing Vivian steps around the scene, steps forward, and all of the fragility of human life is exposed. For the first time in the entire production, she removes her hat, as if loosening the tendrils of this life. As if shedding this life. I heard a loud intake of breath, but I don't know if it were mine or hers.

My friend immediately got up as the house lights came on, eager to beat the crowd to the parking garage. I numbly stood and began to follow. Fighting everything inside me. Because something as ferocious as that final scene was building up inside me. A scream. A sob. That I kept biting back until we reached the elevators, when my friend turned to look at me and ask a question, and I couldn't speak. Because to speak would have let it all out. Would have loosed all my control. He pulled me aside, out of the crowd, but in the lobby, there was no place to go, to hide, to be private. And so we stood, facing a wall, while I tried to keep my emotions from becoming vocal.

I have never been so moved by a piece of art in my life.

And I'm not entirely sure how it happened. How it sneaked up on me. How it hit me unaware. Full force.

Yeah, I'll admit it. I sometimes tear up at films or plays when things either build to an emotional peak or are disarmingly intimate. But it's always a recognition, an acknowledgement of something I already know, something I've already felt in my own life.

But even in my own life, in my own experiences, I have never sobbed. So I would never expect that sensation, that desire, to be generated by a play or a film. The only film that has ever come close, and I'm almost reluctant to bring it up, is Titanic. Before you groan and roll your eyes, I'm not talking about the story, but that moment when the ship has already tipped up, and the lights briefly go off. That moment when the magnitude of the tragedy, the needless loss of life and its sheer scale suddenly become apparent to me. That brief moment when I forget that I'm watching a film but rather am a witness to something horrific and sad. That moment which, if I were to put words to it, would say "oh, I understand" but which simply points to the inability of words to express anything important.

That moment in Titanic pales when compared to what I felt at the end of Wit on stage.

I want everyone to have that experience. I want you to have that experience. But unfortunately, HBO's version will not provide that. Perhaps no filmed version could.

Whereas the staged version hinted at everlasting life, at some moment of transcendence beyond the physical, a comma if you will, HBO's Wit leaves us simply with Vivian's dead body. Leaves us stranded in a literal reality of hospital rooms.