Edinburgh Graduate Theatre
Group presents:
Wit by Margaret Edson
November 11 - 14, 2009
at 8pm
St. Brides Centre, 10 Orwell
Terrace, Edinburgh EH11 2DY
Tickets £9/£7
Following their sold out
run at this year's Fringe, Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group is proud to present
Margaret Edson's Pulitzer prize winning play, Wit. Wit follows the journey of Professor Vivian Bearing, who has been diagnosed with
Stage IV ovarian cancer. There is no Stage V.
Poetry, and not people, has
always been her priority and she has gained a fearsome reputation in her
specialist subject, the holy sonnets of John Donne. Faced with the inevitable
progress of the disease and an experimental treatment, she applies her
customary critical analysis to her predicament and is shocked to discover the
failings of her normally reliable intellectual security. Vivian encounters
alien emotions as she seeks to understand and accept her ever-growing need for
forgiveness, dignity and compassion.
Funny and sad, tragic and
life-affirming, complex and simple, Wit is an exploration of what transpires when words finally fail. Of how,
inevitably, art and science are equally useless, equally detached.
Yet this is no tearful
lecture on how to die. Instead, Wit is a dry-eyed lesson on how to live; with simplicity and kindness.
EGTG was founded in 1954 by
some Edinburgh University alumni who were former members of the University
Dramatic Society. Since then, the
original members have been joined or replaced by fresh generations of
talent. The University connection
has been retained through out the years and the group still meet in the
Graduate Association rooms at 24 Buccleuch Place. EGTG mounted the first-ever production in Adam House and
also re-opened the theatre (following its refurbishment) with our ‘Golden
Jubilee' production of Maskerade by Terry Pratchett in 2004
EGTG average four theatrical
productions each year, including participating in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
and the SCDA One Act Festival.
Never shy of a challenge, in recent years our full-length productions
have included the Scottish amateur premiere of Michael Frayn's Chekhov adaptation
Wild Honey, critically acclaimed Les
Liaisons Dangereuses, Twelfth
Night, Cloud Nine and most recently our sold-out run of the Scottish
premiere of Owen McCafferty's adaptation of Antigone. In the
one-act sphere, EGTG have advanced to the regional round of the SCDA One Act
Competition for the past two years running (Sarah Kane's 4:48 Psychosis and Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman). In
fringe 2007, we produced Tiny Dynamite by Abi Morgan, for which we received a Commendation in the Edinburgh
Evening News Drama Awards.
EGTG is proud to support,
through their production of Wit, Maggie's
Centre Edinburgh and Macmillan Cancer Support.
Bookings for Wit online at hubtickets.co.uk, by phone at 0131 467 1268
or at the venue on the night. All
subject to availability.
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