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Scene 1

• Vivian greets the audience and explains that the standard greeting “around here” is “How are you feeling today?” though it is not her standard greeting.

• Vivian explains that she is a professor of seventeenth-century poetry, specializing in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne.

• She explains that she has been asked “How are you feeling today?” when she is obviously feeling poorly.

• Vivian says she wishes she had become familiar with the phrase earlier in her career and use it with her students, though she would have missed out on its ironic significance. She defines irony.

• Vivian explains that she has stage-four metastatic ovarian cancer.

• She explains that she does not want to give away the plot, but that she is going to die at the end, and has been given two hours.

• Vivian quotes a couplet from Shakespeare, but notes that she is disinclined to poetry at...

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