SOURCE: Gordon, Suzanne. “Nursing and Wit.” American Journal of Nursing 99, no. 5 (May 1999): 9.

In the following review of Wit, Gordon applauds Edson for creating a positive portrait of an empathetic and caring nurse, contrary to other negative contemporary depictions.

“The nurse is the hero.” When was the last time you heard a writer say that about her creation? But Margaret Edson is not the usual writer, and her play, Wit, is not the usual commercial fare.

Whether it's on Broadway, in Hollywood, or in the print media, nurses are either absent or demeaned. But night after night, crowds of theatergoers in New York City see a very different kind of nurse. Wit tells the story of Vivian Bearing, a professor of English literature who is dying of ovarian cancer. The action takes place in a cancer research hospital where Bearing is receiving an experimental treatment from her attending oncologist...