What an interesting snapshot of a writer's constantly-adapting mind.
I struggled mightily with "uncommon women";
I enjoyed "isnt it romantic" a lot, enough to keep reading;
and "the Heidi Chronicles" was one of the best, wittiest, smartest plays I've read.
W.W. had something to say, an honest to God point of view,and seeing her grapple with and hone that perspective over the course of these 3 plays was as interesting a reading experience as I've had of late...

Excellent - now I need to SEE the play. Might have to Netflix it....

I love these three plays. I wrote on the Heidi Chronicles in my Masters thesis. The topic of "wanting it all", career, kids and a society approved relationship is elaborated in a very refreshing way. At the same time it made me think of how the play still strikes today's Zeitgeist, given all the TV-shows and shiny magazines that want to tell us how to design our life styles: get pretty for work in the morning, while preparing a healthy lunch in a chic lunch tote, gym after work if not having a drink at a 5-7, wedding day, kids, all needs to be planned years in ahead.
Where are today's Heidis who point the way to an attitude that allows us to pass on some of those many societal expectations? Cause it's ok and it's your happiness to take to heart.

4.5

Read aloud. I'd love to be able to write like this. Witty and meaningful. So glad I borrowed this through interlibrary loan.

Sad to miss Elisabeth Moss playing Heidi on Broadway! Also, how did I miss reading this at my women's college?

I felt a lot of the emotions that Heidi did as I was reading this play. But the final image made it worth it.

A must of course for those who attended Mount Holyoke where the author graduated from...The Audible version has an interview with Wendy in the end. It is a great story about growing up a woman from the 60s to the 90s. Much of it holds true today...

These plays are all about a subject dear to my heart: women struggling to figure out what they want and how to 'have it all'. The dialogue reminds me of how much has changed (one WASP character wouldn't hypothetically marry a Jewish character because 'there would be problems at the club') and how much is still the same (tea at women's colleges, limiting and contradictory expectations placed on women, etc). The plays must have seemed provocative and controversial at the time but now they are a bit musty. Still, we can't relegate them to the closet when so many of the issues Wasserstein raises are relevant now.

Uncommon Women and Others was really good. It was refreshing to read a play with female characters written by a woman. That's the reason the monologues from this play are used so much in auditions. What's also really cool is the familiar names in the original cast. Picturing Glenn Close or Meryl Streep saying the lines makes the reading more vivid.

Isn't It Romantic didn't sit as well with me, but that was probably more my fault because I read the play in pieces over the course of a week. The conclusion was however, very satisfying, and is again, a reason to read the works of female playwrights.

I really enjoyed The Heidi Chronicles. The play is filled with original characters and seems fresh and relevant twenty years later. The chronological vignette structure is a difficult one for playwrights to pull off, but Wendy Wasserstein executed it brilliantly.

Definitely read all three plays, in order.

So funny and heartfelt too.

[Disclosure: My positive reviews of these plays is helped by the fact that I found a SIGNED copy of this book at the library book sale for fifty cents.