The play follows the last few months in the life of a professor of English literature, dying of ovarian cancer. She has given her body to science, while living. That is to say, she has agreed to undergo radical chemotherapy for eight months, knowing the treatment will not cure her, but agreeing to allow the doctors to use her as a test case for their research.
Thank God she had a nurse with both a conscience and a heart.
It's important to note, at this point, that the bedside manner of physicians has undergone a major overhaul since the early 1990's, when this play was written.
It's also of importance to note that the doctors are not the only ones dwelling in ivory towers, with limited exposure to the real world. The author, Margaret Edson, probably modeled the lead character after herself, as far as educational background is concerned. Both women, the real one and the fictional one, went straight from high school to college to graduate school and then into university as a teacher. Pardon me; I meant to say "Professor".
(smile)
Believe me, that distinction matters to many of those who have lived in the halls of academia their entire lives.
That's where the snobbery towards the bard comes into play. After all, Shakespeare wrote in the words of his day, the everyday language of the working man. "Hamlet" is chock full of lines which have lived on into usage still, such as my title quote. The same is also true of many of his other plays, too. I can recall being surprised when reading "Macbeth" at the number of lines I already knew!
I'm also familiar with the works of John Donne, a late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century poet who struggled mightily with his own religious beliefs, raised Catholic but converted to Anglican to avoid death. Hence, his poems reek of suffering and pain and loss - and an interesting use of punctuation to alter perception. Later studiers of his works described him as the founder of "metaphysical poetry".
I would have liked to know his take on that.
His "Holy Sonnets", written after the death of his wife (during the birth of their twelfth child), are at the heart of "W;t". The lead character has studied his works for more than half of her life, teaching them for the last three decades.
I have to wonder about the purposeful use of a semicolon instead of the letter "i" in the play's title.
Did it represent the loss of the individual to the disease?
Does it reflect the impersonal use of the patient as an item to be studied?
Was it meant to remind us of the temporary nature of being an "I"?
Or are we to remember its cousin, the dash, and the usage of that small item to document the length of a life?
I'm going to close with a poem, written by Linda Ellis, in 1996. I've read it several times in emails, but never did it bear more meaning than to me than now.
The Dash
by Linda Ellis copyright 1996
I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.
He noted that first came the date of birth
and spoke the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time
that they spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved them
know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not, how much we own,
the cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.
So, think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.
If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.
And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile,
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.
So, when your eulogy is being read,
with your life’s actions to rehash…
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent YOUR dash?
Copyright 1996 Linda Ellis
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
www.Linda-Ellis.com
- See more at: http://lindaellis.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/11/the-dash.html#sthash.Ir1pAGCU.dpuf
1 comment:
One last word on this.
When I had seen the line-up for Collective Face Ensemble's 2014-2015 season, I had immediately said I was not going to this play.
Then, when I found out about Panda Ann's death from ovarian cancer at the first of February, I again said I was not going to this play.
Then I read that Dandy Barrett was in the lead role.
That changed things.
Because of her advanced age, far past the age at which women contract ovarian cancer and die, I felt I could have some distance. She was too old, so I KNEW it was 'just pretend'.
I did really well, too, until they started talking about the morphine pump.
Then I started crying and couldn't stop.
(see my January 10, 2014 post)
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