LIGHT IS SHINING IN LIFE-AFFIRMING 'WIT'

New York - "I am, in short, a force!" So declares the haughty, erudite, magnificent heroine of Margaret Edson's intense, life-affirming Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "Wit." The role of Ph.D. Vivian Bearing was originally and brilliantly realized by Kathleen Chalfant. Now it has been taken over by Judith Light, who is ferociously good as the grandly solitary professor, facing death with lacerating humor.
     Though Light is perhaps best known to TV audiences for her many seasons with Tony Danza on "Who's the Boss?," she is no stranger to serious emoting - just ask anybody who remembers her Emmy-winning role as the tortured Karen Wolek on "One Life to Live." (Light jokes, "When my mother complained that Karen was a prostitute, I said, 'But mom, she's married to a doctor!'") Still nothing Light has done, in daytime soaps, sitcoms or TV movies, can prepare you for her harrowing work here. She is literally transformed by her role.
     Light is a movingly empathetic person, as eager to hear about your life as she is to talk about her career. She says that accepting the role in "Wit" was "simply a continuation of my own personal discovery... accepting and facing my fears. I spent a lot of years avoiding moving on. When I got this offer, I was like, 'Are you kidding? Do you really want to act out the agonies of ovarian cancer and the indignities of hospitalization every night? Do you want to shave your head? Do you want to have to stand on stage naked for five seconds under a rather brutal spotlight?' Well, I made my leap of faith, and the result, for me, has been glorious!"
     The result is pretty glorious for audiences, too. Light remains in "Wit" until early January at the Union Square Theatre. Go. You will be devastated. You'll leave this incredible play cherishing life, and perhaps not fearing death quite so much.
     Also in the current production, playing an insensitive doctor, is Grant Show, who is so very good here that he is unrecognizable from his years as the oft-shirtless hunk of "Melrose Place."