The Daylesford Theatre production of Wit is a gut-wrenching portrayal of one woman?s struggle to retain her dignity and keep her mind sharp as her body is cruelly ravaged by ovarian cancer.

Staged by the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society and directed by Phillip Jones and produced by Paul Matthews, the play lives up to Margaret Edson?s Pulitzer prize winning masterpiece.

With a light touch both the intellect and heart is engaged in examining the life of Vivian Bearing, Ph.D (Denise Astwood) a middle aged professor of English who has spent years mining the Holy Sonnets of poet John Donne.

From the start of this play when Mrs. Astwood appears on stage hooked up to an IV pole and donning a hospital gown and a red and white bandanna, it was clear fluffy sentimentality would not be on display.

Combative, brave, erudite, defiant, rambunctious, all these character traits were reflected in Mrs. Astwood?s bearing in confronting this one-sided duel with the grim reaper.

It was with much sang-froid that Dr. Bearing begins the ordeal of being treated as a mere guinea pig after she is recognised by Dr. Harvey Kelekian (Mervyn Moorhead) as a prime candidate for his programme of experimental chemotherapy.

Clinical to a fault, he deduces that this is one tough lady both physically and psychologically but fails to acknowledge a shred of doubt about her true vulnerability.

In a cutting indictment of the medical profession Dr. Kelekian and his young research assistant Jason Posner (Paul Woolgar) heartlessly conspire to subject Vivian to series of treatments at full dose.

Dr. Kelekian is coldly blunt ? ?You?ve got cancer? ? while Posner regards ?bedside manner? as ?a waste of time?. Only nurse Susie Monahan (Jennifer Osmond) is compassionate enough to recognise that under her bluff exterior, Vivian is a human being.

Ironically this was something she only realises when reassessing her life and work does it dawns on her that her life is lacking in human warmth.

This aspect of life is also brought to the surface with Posner?s obsession with discovering the next scientific discovery, but Mr. Woolgar is far from one dimensional.

In preferring research to human contact, his failings seem to mirror Dr. Bearing?s who remained aloof from her students and from other people.

Mr. Woolgar was equally cutting in delivering the comments of the young doctor on the liberal arts as he was about the medical profession to considerable comic effect.

No rocket scientist, Monahan (played sympathetically by Ms Osmond) is shrewd enough to understand that the experimental chemotherapy, apart from providing false hope, would result in unbearable pain and suffering.

Far more than a mere medical drama, the play pays poetic homage to the insights of Donne, the 17th Century English poet and Mrs. Astwood brings much substance to this role.

When she recites Donne?s most famous sonnet, ?Death Be Not Proud?, she expresses his sardonic wit and metaphysical universe exploring life, mortality, love, and redemption.

For those not versed with Donne this play opens a Pandora?s box of delights and Mrs. Astwood?s gifts for declamatory exposition provided an eloquent rendering of the poet?s language.

Whether as a five-year-old Beatrix Potter expanding her vocabulary or apprenticing with professor Ashwood (Lillian Veri), Mrs. Astwood?s performance exhibited the passionate fervour Dr. Bearing had for scholarly pursuits.

As the chemotherapy slowly takes its toll physically and mentally, Mrs. Astwood presented the audience with a poignant account of a one woman?s agonising acceptance of life going on its ultimate journey.

This was a stellar performance from Mrs. Astwood supported by admirable supporting cast and crew.

It would have been a pity if last week?s blackout had prevented this show from continuing, so the efforts made to bring this play to the stage have now paid off with an impeccable piece of theatre.