Wit

The main character of the play, Vivian Bearing (played by Anja Šovagović Despot), is a university professor. A great mind, her speciality are the sonnets of the metaphysical poet John Donne, who intensively and in great depth deals with death in them. Thus, professor Bearing knows everything there is to know about life and death, she's an expert on the subject. All of a sudden comes the diagnosis: ''Mrs. Bearing, you have cancer.'' And everything that has so far been giving her a sense of security, will now show its lack of power. Vivian, as a matter of fact, knows nothing of life and death. Questions without answers on the eternal antagonism between the body and the spirit, physics and metaphysics, degeneration and duration now revolve in her, but not on a theoretical or philosophical level, no, because it is her life and her death that are at stake... Today, everything seems attainable and available, everything can be bought, almost everything can be known. We feel alive because we shop, spend, because people call us ''professor'', ''sir'', becuse we identify ourselves with what we have achieved, learned, bought, obtained and collected within us and around us. We are full of information about everything. But what are we to do with all that when we're facing death? Is our mind, however brilliant it may be, capable of giving answers to the ''final questions''? What am I when all of that: knowledge, titles, money, awards..., become - when faced with the diagnosis ''incurable'' - so insignificant? ''People die, and they are not happy.'', was Albert Camus' answer to a question what in his opinion was the main characteristic of the 20th century. On the eve of the new century Margaret Edson has written, despite the ''difficult'' subject matter, an ''easily digestible'' play. ''Wit'' is in many places an ironic, often humorous text, which leads the conflict ''body - spirit'' to extremes. ''The theatre is a place that celebrates the Good, the Truthful and the Beautiful.'' said Claus Peymann. We believe that Gavella Theatre actors will show in ''Wit'' that Kindness, Truth and Beauty still exist. Sometimes we realize that very late, then again, better late, than never.

''The leading role in Gavella Theatre's production is played by the superb Anja Šovagović, who in a shockingly brave manner accepts the situation of a shaken self-awareness and gradual health defeat. Šovagović stars as the doctor of literature Vivian Bearing, a powerful combination of arogance, scholarliness and discrete teasing, as if the fight with death is but a slightly more complicated game of chess where the most important thing is not to lose your concentration, dignity and a carefully measured sense of humour. (...) Sven Šestak also gives a wonderful performance as the naturalist counterpart of the heroine. (...) along with Šovagović and Šestak, a crucial role in the performance is brilliantly played by Ingeborg Appelt, blending in her heroine several mentor profiles (an older scientist, a mother, a grandmother). The scene where Appelt is reading a children's story to her dying colleague is so tearingly intimate that it leaves no one in the audience indifferent.'' (Nataša Govedić, Novi list)

''Wit provokes a very strong sense of recognition on the level of general experience in all who have, at least once, found themselves lying in a hospital bed, which is also the strongest feeling (a mixture of anger and helplessness) one leaves the theatre with.'' (Helena Braut, Vjesnik)

''That's why Wit in the end isn't a play about dying, but rather a play about living. Such as it is, in the moment when it was made, the play is an unuttered dedication to Marina Nemet, a member of the Gavella Theatre ensemble.'' (Igor Ružić, T-portal)

''Anja Šovagović despot gave a distinguished performance as Vivian Bearing, persuasively and without superfluous acting means portraying the existential powerlessness of her character. The deepest moving moment of the play is, without doubt, the scene where the protagonist, with every inch of her muscles, finally admits the pain and the fear that are tearing her apart.'' (Matko Botić, Kulisa.eu)

''A play about a misinterpreted comma from the tenth sonnet of John Donne's Holy Sonnets (Death, be not proud...) at the beginning of a career in humanities, turns into a play about a misguided humanistic and medicinal science, about a missing comma - about the lack of care for man, about hospital (non)conditions, callous experiments, the loss of emotions in the cruel carrieristic world. The audience which was leaving the theatre of life and death in tears, in recognition of the fateful comma, is also a testimony of how much meaning Gavella Theatre and its mission carry.'' (Mira Muhoberac, "Vijenac")