A new Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society (BMDS) play opening at the Daylesford Theatre promises to not only entertain audience, but also give a local cancer charity a boost.

BMDS will be performing Margaret Edson's play, 'W;t' from July 14 to 23. The play is about Vivian Bearing, a professor of 17th century poetry, and her lonely battle with ovarian cancer.

On July 16, BMDS will be holding a gala showing of 'W;t' to raise money for the cancer charity PALS.

"It is good to raise money for a really worthy cause," said Denise Astwood who plays the main character, Vivian. "I'm sure that will be a great success."

Mrs. Astwood admitted that she almost forgot to audition for 'W;t'.

"I knew that W;t was coming up for auditions, but I had forgotten precisely when because we had house guests," she said. "A couple of friends said 'you really ought to audition'. I did."

Mrs. Astwood's character is an expert on the holy sonnets of English poet John Donne. One of the most shocking things about the play, is not so much the ovarian cancer itself, but the fact that Professor Bearing has no friends or relations.

"She was so dedicated to the research of 17th century poetry that she let everything else slide," said Mrs. Astwood. "She is very tough and she is determined."

Playwright Mrs. Edson, who is an American schoolteacher in her everyday life, won a Pulitzer prize for 'W;t' in 1999. In 2001 'W;t' was made into a movie starring Emma Thompson.

In an interview with OnLine NewsHour in 1999, Mrs. Edson said: "It's a play about love and knowledge. And it's about a person who has built up a lot of skills during her life who finds herself in a new situation where those skills and those great capacities don't serve her very well. So she has to disarm, and then she has to become a student. She has to become someone who learns new things."

Mrs. Astwood said that the play's title was a reference to 'wit', the poetic devise used in the 17th century, particularly by John Donne to discuss metaphysical ideas.

"I am a fan of John Donne," said Mrs. Astwood. "I was lucky to have very good English teachers and we covered quite a lot of it. That was a great help to me because I can concentrate on that quite a lot, and that helps me in the play."

Donne is considered one of the greatest metaphysical poets. Donne wrote the famous line '...never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee'.

His handling of his own demise was noteworthy. Shortly before his death, a sick John Donne preached his own funeral sermon before a large audience in an address called 'Death's Duell'.

"We have a winding sheet in our mother's womb," he said. "which grows with us from our conception, and we come into the world wound up in that winding sheet, for we come to seek a grave." He went home and drew a picture of himself in his funeral shroud. He lay in bed and stared at the portrait for the next couple of days until his death.

Mrs. Astwood said that although the subject matter, death and ovarian cancer, sounds depressing, Vivian Bearing is full of biting humour.

"Professor Bearing is quite prickly," said Mrs. Astwood. "She describes herself as being uncompromising and tough. She is a fairly strong-minded woman who really only cares about research into 17th century literature.

"She has regrets. That comes through in the play. She realises what part of life she didn't take up. She prefers research to human interaction. That definitely comes through in the end. What she needs now is human support."

Mrs. Astwood thought that the message of the play might be to live as well rounded a life as possible.

"Perhaps people should be open to all that humanity has to offer," said Mrs. Astwood. "I think that is probably the main idea."

Mrs. Astwood trained in drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, England. She is married to a Bermudian, Kit Astwood.

"I have been married for more than 23 years, but I have been coming back and forth to Bermuda since I was 12 years old."

She said it took her parents a little while to accept that she wanted to study theatre.

"My mother made me take a shorthand course, which was not a great success," she said. "My parents might have preferred me to go straight to university instead."

Her advice to young Bermudians considering going into the theatre is basically, 'just do it'.

"It is quite important when you want to do something to try," she said. "When you really want to do something, you should, but it is a tough life, there is no question about that. If you believe in yourself you will have a go at it."

She started with BMDS in 2000.

"I did some acting in Bermuda before that, but I decided to get back to it in the Millennium," she said. "I have done quite a few things in the last couple of years."

One of the challenges that 'W;t' presents her with is lengthy monologues.

"There is more dialogue in the play than most modern plays probably because there are so many monologues in it," she said. "There are pages and pages of monologues. It is a lot. If you were doing a lead in Shakespeare you would probably have more to learn.

"People have so many different ways of learning. I just sit down quietly and go over and over the dialogue. The main thing is that you need to learn your character and what the character is doing in each scene.

"Once you know that, where the character is going and what the character wants to say, then it is really a matter of hiding the lines. You know the gist of what you want to say. Even if you fluff it you can get back on the right track, more or less."

She said she has never written a play herself; she prefers to act.

"BMDS have offered great workshops, but I just haven't done any," she said. "I get the satisfaction from acting. It is very satisfying to try to bring a character to life. I also love the interaction with the audience. You feel that you really are communicating ... when you get it right."

She has also performed in 'Mummers, Mystery and Mayhem' done in conjunction with the Bermuda Festival, a series of BMDS Blackadder plays, and the Gilbert & Sullivan Society's performance of 'Carmen'.

"BMDS' '24 Hours to Curtain' was a lot of fun," she said. "They did it last August. The playwrights were chosen or volunteered. At 8 p.m. everyone who wanted to act showed up at the Daylesford Theare. The playwrights drew their actors out of a hat. They went home and wrote a play that was then printed up. They came back at 8 a.m. the next morning and the play went on that night. The plays were only five or six minutes long. You can't make them too long."

'W;t' is being directed by Philip Jones and produced by Paul Matthews.

"The stage manager and assistant stage manager, Jennifer Wills and Cindy Patterson are brilliant and very helpful," said Mrs. Astwood.

Actors include Mervyn Moorehead, Paul Woolgar and others.