The Heidi Chronicles

I had a supporting, one-scene role in this play in a college production. Reading the script pretty much blew my mind, and pushed me in a few directions I would not have explored without it. Heidi Holland, an art historian, grows from a high school girl who isn't buying the usual scene to a confident professional who shapes a life she wants, even if it doesn't line up with what society thinks she should want. In between we get a look at all the different phases Heidi goes through, a neat tour of women in art, and a candid look at the 60s, 70s, and 80s, in all their glory. I'm still pissed Wasserstein died so soon, but I'm glad she left us what she did.

I read this because Civic will be doing this as a staged reading in Spring. Even though I'm about a decade behind "Heidi", this is SO much the story of my life and the women of my generation -- the choices and consequences we have faced. I AM Heidi. Well, I would like to be Heidi in the staged reading, anyway.

Dramatization by LA Theatre Works on Libby featuring Martha Plimpton (not as Heidi but still my favorite). Highly entertaining and witty - though not sure this one aged well!

One of my reading themes in 2016, that I hope to continue in 2017, has been to read more classic plays. It is in this regard that I selected Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles, which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1988. Wasserstein had previously wrote for the Seattle Repertory Company and penned two other plays- An Uncommon Woman and A Life Imagined. Heidi was her first play to win multiple awards and enjoy long success on Broadway.

The Heidi Chronicles details twenty five years in the life of Dr. Heidi Holland, professor of art history. Heidi becomes an archetype of the baby boom era who went from campaigning for Eugene McCarthy to demanding equality for women in the work place and at home. Along the way, we meet other characters who share Heidi's journey in life: Susan who is Heidi's closest friend and cracks the glass ceiling in the working world; Scoop Rosenbaum an entrepreneur who loves Heidi but can not marry her because she would rather achieve at work than at home; and Peter Patrone, Heidi's first love who becomes a successful pediatrician and then turns out to be gay. These four characters become representative of the baby boom era that is still achieving today.

In the course of 80 pages of dialogue, it is clear that Wasserstein diligently took the time to research Heidi's character. We learn of lesser known female painters who had to take a back seat to famous men in society; most evident is Lilly Cabot who at a time lived next door to Monet and learned from the French master. What Heidi hoped to achieve in the art world was to eradicate the gap between men and women so that Lilly Cabot is as well known as Claude Monet. This is apparent with Wasserstein's other characters as well. Susan makes inroads in producing sitcoms, Lisa publishes children's books, and April hosts Hello, New York. All of these gains occurred in the 1980s while the glass ceiling was first beginning to crack.

What did not work for me and lowered my rating was the depiction of the male characters in the play. In order to get Heidi to achieve, Wasserstein created two ex-lovers who maintained traits negative enough for Heidi to reject them. Scoop Rosenbaum desired a spouse who would not compete with him. Lisa Friedlander desired a family and was happy taking a back seat to her husband, so she was marriageable material; Heidi, who loved Scoop dearly but wanted a successful career, was not. Peter also loved Heidi for a quarter century but turns out to be gay. In the 21st century, Scoop and Heidi would be considered a power couple. In the mid 1980s, however, Heidi impedes Scoop rise to stardom, thus dating the play thirty years back.

The Heidi Chronicles remains a poignant study of the feminist side to the baby boom generation. I enjoyed reading how women of my mother's generation began to crack into the mythical glass ceiling in many facets of the working world. Yet, from its depiction of men, I believe the play not to be as timeless as some of the other plays I have read this year. Heidi was deserving of the Pulitzer upon its release in 1988, and I glad that I took the time to study it. Worthy of this award, I rate The Heidi Chronicles 4 stars.

solid play. really enjoyed it and it’s commentary

Everything boomer is millennial again.

A pulitzer prize winning play for the feminist Vassar and Brown crowd.

I'm not big on plays, but I really liked this one. The thing that attracted me initially was the synopsis - finding myself and trying to be true to myself (as cliche as it sounds) are things I have always thought about. But I definitely found much more in this play.
People argue if this work is still relevant, they talk about feminism and how it's different today. I do agree that this work is about the specific situation of a middle-class woman in that specific time and I wouldn't say that one can just change some details and, voila, the play would be as if set today. (The dialogue alone both between Heidi and Scoop or Peter and Heidi and Fran or Susan would go quite differently today.) But, although significant improvements on women's rights have been made, I would say the question of "having it all" is still very much on the table (or the question of having equal opportunities if we're talking in terms of class). We as people are still trying to find ourselves, wanting to find our own voices, but also wanting to be a part of a larger group, to find acceptance, but also be content with ourselves.
But it's not only about being relevant, it does and has more than that. The play serves as a historical view on feminism and its problems back then, it is a play where the sentiment that was present in the lives of many women was finally put on paper and then the stage. And it has such snappy and witty dialogues that to me they seemed as good and important as the subject matter itself.
I'm not going to go into an analysis of the text itself as there are definitely more competent people out there doing just that, but there is one more thing I would like to say about the matter at hand and things around it. The women in this play fight for having it all, but the content of "having it all" is not the same for every woman (or every man, for that matter). The play seems to be more about the women being in this together (or, as it turns out, not being together), but it seems to me it also brings up a question of separateness in this togetherness. That is still a question worth considering. And this is still a play worth reading.