Vivian Bearing is the main character in the play and she gets bad news in the form of cancer and that she only has about 2 hours left to live and she will spend the rest of it in a cancer ward. Nobody likes hearing this type of news as you will be left to ponder what could have happened in your life or what you could have done to make it different. There is certainly nothing you can do it about the past now and the future as well.
You are just going to be there waiting to be taken. In the beginning, she goes out to the crowd and exclaims “Hi, how are you feeling today?”. This quote gets repeated throughout the play and it is evident it will be remembered by the audience after they exit the theater for a very long time. After that, we learn more about Vivian Bearing and who she is. She is a Literature professor and she really loves what she does for a living. She reveals she is addicted to the work of John Donne.
Susie Monahan and Jason Posner are introduced as the other main characters of the movie. Susie is the nurse who gives Vivian her medication. It is not an easy job to be the nurse here too as you get to suffer with the patient in the ordeal she is in but somebody has to do it or else nobody will. This play teaches us a lot of lessons in life like making the most out of it because you never know when you are going to say goodbye to all your loved ones.