SOURCE: Bregman, Bertie. “Blame the Scholar, Not the Discipline.” Lancet 353, no. 9155 (6 March 1999): 851-52.

In the following review, Bregman, a medical doctor, lauds Edson for her portrayal of the intellectual frigidity often associated with academia as a result of the scholar's own failings and not the study itself.

According to the playnotes to Wit, the playwright, Margaret Edson, used to work in the cancer ward of a research hospital. She has transformed the experience into a production of uncommon emotional force.

Vivian Bearing, beautifully acted by Kathleen Chalfant, is an English professor specialising in the poetry of John Donne. Fiftyish, bald, dressed only in a hospital gown, she addresses the audience in the authoritative voice of someone used to lecturing to large audiences. She has advanced, metastatic, ovarian cancer and, through a mixture of narrative, present action, and flashback she relates the story of her illness and treatment with...