'Wit' star can relate to cancer victim's tale

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor

Betty Burdick is cancer patient Vivian Bearing, and David Schaeffer is Dr. Kelekian in Manoa Valley Theatre's production of "Wit," which opens to the public Wednesday. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser 'Wit' A drama by Margaret Edson Premieres at 7 p.m. Tuesday, as an American Cancer Society benefit; regular run starts Wednesday, with curtain at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays, through June 2 Manoa Valley Theatre Benefit tickets $80, includes cocktail reception 6-6:45 p.m., other perks; 595-7544 Regular tickets $25 general, $10 for those 25 and younger; $5 discount for seniors and military 988-6131 Also: A Donato's buffet will be available 90 minutes before curtain Wednesdays through Sundays.

"I've been experiencing the (cancer-related) deaths of a lot of my friends in New York," said Burdick, a drama and acting teacher at Hawai'i Pacific University and Leeward Community College.

But she has a sound philosophy.

"The process of a grave illness has some interesting gifts in it that you don't otherwise get, and the role of Dr. Vivian Bearing is too good to pass. If you're 50, you don't get too many of these."

"Wit," a drama by Margaret Edson, premieres Tuesday at Manoa Valley Theatre in a benefit performance for the American Cancer Society. Public performances start Wednesday.

Because her mother and grandmother died of cancer, Burdick said, she knew she was at risk. Thus, getting into the psyche and soul of Bearing, a distinguished professor in the last phase of her battle with ovarian cancer, touched her on several levels.

"My mom was 72 when she died in 1990," said Burdick. "She was on the West Coast, and I was on the East, but I saw her a few weeks before she died. Unlike the character I play, my mom didn't have much pain. She had constant nausea, though, because the tumors gave her nausea. She had six months of chemo, with all that platinum going through her veins. It was a learning experience."

Her grandmother had died of uterine cancer earlier. "She probably waited so long, the cancer may have started in her ovaries," said Burdick.

That cloud has plagued her for years. "I'm at double the risk," she said. "I had bad fibroids; my uterus extended twice its normal size. I had a hysterectomy and debated about getting my ovaries out. All of this makes you think."

In MVT's recreation, "Wit" is following the New York tradition of putting the actress through the rigors and realities of the role. The hair goes. The clothes, too.

"Shaving my head was interesting," Burdick said. "I simply didn't think about it. I had read the script in August, and turned to my husband (Kevin Carr) and asked, 'How do you feel about my being naked on stage?' He's tried to be supportive, helping me run through lines, but I hadn't mentioned the head-shaving ... until it was time."

Greg Howell, a stylist at Paul Brown, did the snip-snip. "He gave me an electric razor (for maintenance)," she said. "I have to shave every day during the show. Fortunately, I have a nice head. The advantage of being an actress is that you try things you may not have thought about."

Normally, Burdick has thin, blonde hair. With the bald pate, she began using turbans or a wig. She stopped using the wig at the request of some of her students at HPU.

Otherwise, she said it's cooler without hair, and she's cautious about shielding her head from direct sun. But she has a terrifying thought: "Will it grow back and be the same?"

There's the element of dieting, too. "I'm supposed to be terminal, thin; and I'm not thin," she said. A low-carbo diet has helped some pounds melt away. "But I have hips; though my body shape has changed a little."

She hadn't crossed the nudity bridge when she was interviewed for this story.

But she has been butt-naked on stage before. In New York. "I had a towel, and dropped it, with my back to the audience," she said.

So she'll be ready to bare it all, in the climactic moments of the play, as decreed by the playwright. But director Roger Long, she said, had concerns about the total nudity.

"When he saw the play, the actress stripped totally frontal. He looked at what there was to see, and he'd been considering not having the nudity because of that. The discomfort. But I think she needs to disrobe," Burdick said of the character's mettle.

Burdick said the words and ways of Vivian are so open, honest and real, "I feel she takes you through her journey."

Dying is part of life, said Burdick.

"Dying is a process. There are things that you get to thinking about ... like, why continue with so much suffering? In acting the role, I try to deal with my own feelings of death and illness. Vivian looks into that big black pit. I have definite feelings about death (with dignity). No one wants to be a vegetable or compromise the quality of life."

Burdick can't help but feel consumed by Vivian.

"I try not to let her show up in my classroom, but she does, occasionally," Burdick chuckled. "She's very strong, very intellectual, which I find admirable. And she doesn't want to compromise what she's teaching (Vivian is a scholar of poet John Donne). She wants her students to be as dedicated as she is. And yes, she has standards; you live up to them, or you're out. It's admirable, but not humane. And that's part of her story. She comes to this situation and finds that nothing has prepared her for it; she doesn't quite know how to make that human contact.

"The best part of this experience is the rehearsal process," she said. "While it's tiring to go from teaching to acting, it's definitely rewarding and worth it to go through all that Vivian goes through. In the end, it's all very uplifting."