Margaret Edson, whose play "Wit" was announced on April 12 as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, recounted to Back Stage in the summer of 1997, a history of the developmental process that led to the current production of her drama at the Union Square Theatre.
At the time, Edson was a teacher of English as a Second Language in Washington, D.C., and the play, her first, had already been produced by South Coast Repertory, in February 1995. And that production had occurred three years after she had sent the script to 30 theatres around the country.
The development of "Wit" was like that of most new plays in the American theatre today‹typically circuitous, involving numerous theatres, actors, directors, and dramaturgs. In June 1993, it received a reading at The Players club in New York with Marian Seldes in the lead as the brilliant John Donne scholar who learns that she is stricken with ovarian cancer. It was given one rehearsal by director Michael Tolan‹"everyone was respectful of my work," Edson said‹and she made some cuts in the script.
That August, "exploratory" development proceeded under the auspices of the Audrey Skirball‹Kenis Theatre. Brian Nelson directed. That, in turn, was followed by a reading at South Coast Rep, directed by the theatre's founding director, Martin Benson; he gave it three rehearsals. At the time, South Coast had made no commitment to producing the work.
Edson did not experience the readings as a kind of "half-theatre," a problem playwrights commonly cite concerning the developmental process of readings and workshops. And, she said, she enjoyed the feedback sessions. "Jerry Patch, South Coast's dramaturg, acted as moderator," she explained, "keeping the comments from being platitudes or complaints. The audience wanted to help me, as collaborators. One person would say, "This didn't make sense to me,' and another would say, "I liked this scene. . . .' There was a diversity of comments."
During rehearsals for the full production, Benson discovered that doing it without intermission helped to pace the evening. Edson incorporated that change into the script. Tech week found her "adjusting the pegs of the instrument," sometimes in conference off to the side with then-leading lady Megan Cole.
The production was a success, and Edson's play, from the time of the first reading, had become a half-hour shorter because of the playwright's cuts. The script was now ready for . . . another reading.
New York Theatre Workshop brought in Derek Anson Jones, an old friend of Edson's, to be the play's fourth director. And after discussions with Jones, she did make "minor but important revisions."
In November 1997, "Wit" opened at the Long Wharf Theatre, in New Haven, when it launched the re-opening of its second stage. That production, like the 1998 New York production from which it was derived, starred Kathleen Chalfant in the role of Vivian Bearing, and it was directed by Jones.
Along the way, the play won "Best New Play" awards on both coasts. Edson's feelings about the development process‹a subject of much controversy among dramatists?
"It's a credit to the American regional theatre," she said.