Last night I saw the brilliant Cynthia Nixon play a role on stage what could well be the performance of her life, and that will see her take home the Tony award. Wit has just opened on Broadway in NY and she got not 1 but 2 standing ovations for her portrayal of Vivian Bearing, a stage 4 ovarian cancer patient undergoing aggressive treatment… Oh my goodness, it took my breath away!

Wit is on at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater and if you are in NYC or passing through, I cannot recommend this play more highly. Cynthia Nixon is most well known for her portrayal of Sex and the city’s Miranda, and I would assume that most people see her as a good actress but maybe not a great one. I never imagined that she would be this good! I now see her as an outstanding actress.

Margaret Edson’s play, cleverly titled ‘Wit’ is about about cancer and poetry. It was Off Broadway in the late 1990s and won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Don’t expect light comedy, but humor (the most profound and amazing kind) is in abundance. The story centers on a poetry professor (Cynthia) reflecting on her life, relationships and own humanity as she lies in hospital dying from a very aggressive form of cancer.

Cynthia Nixon never leaves the stage, and performs what appears to be a monologue, a one-woman show stopping performance. I think I can say quite confidently that it was one of the bravest, most vulnerable performances I have ever seen (not to give too much away about the end) but Cynthia has shaved her head for the role and has 100% shed every ounce of Miranda left in her. Cynthia herself is a cancer survivor, and I do believe that she is treating this play and this character as the role of her life…

I left the theater blown away, numb, and the woman siting next to me told me that she is a 9 year survivor of stage 4 ovarian cancer. This just topped off my night – if I didn’t have shivers running down my body already (which I did), I certainly did after that.

See this show!!! I very rarely say this without reservation… and expect to laugh, cry and be thoroughly transformed. I will never watch a scene with Carrie and Miranda the same way again.

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