Audiobook. An interesting, easy listen from a baby boomer.

Excellent EXCELLENT!!! Beautiful playwriting. I love it. I love this world. And Heidi Chronicles is just out of this world.

I was introduced to the oeuvre of Ms. Wasserstein through the PBS broadcast (in 1979?) of Uncommon Women and Others. I was later in an acting class where texts from The Heidi Chronicles and Isn't It Romantic were used for showcases. And then i dated a woman for whom the themes of WW's work resonated most strongly. She was the female voice of my generation; the only other woman who came close is Tina Howe. Highly recommended.

"The Heidi Chronicles" are fantastic; "Isn't It Romantic" is decently funny; "Uncommon Women" is pretty good in its own right.

This book of three short plays from the 1970s and 1980s is a delightful flashback for me. I will go to my 50th high school class reunion this year. It will be interesting to see how many of us managed to have it all.

A random speech from the first play, Uncommon Women and Others:

HOLLY: What kind of pleasure? There’s someone on top of you sweating and pushing and you’re lying there pretending this is wonderful. That’s not wonderful. That’s masochistic.

Well, this is a feminist play from the 70s! What did you expect?

Here is the description of Holly at the front of the play:

HOLLY KAPLAN: hair disheveled, yet well cut. She wears expensive clothes that don’t quite match, not because she doesn’t know what matches, but because she doesn’t want to try too hard. That would be too embarrassing. A relier for many years on the adage “If she lost twenty pounds, she’s be a very pretty girl, and if she worked, she’d do very well,” Holly has devised a strong moral code of warmth for those you love and wit for those you’re scared of. Holly saw the Radio City Easter Show in second grade and planned to convert.

Andre Bishop writes in the Foreward:

Reading the plays of Wendy Wasserstein is quite different from seeing the plays of Wendy Wasserstein. In the theatre, they are consistently funny; the comedy sparkles. Yet when one sits down to read these three plays, one is surprised, almost overwhelmed, by their seriousness.
It seems to me that Wendy’s plays are ideas that happen to be written as comedies. The three heroines, though vastly different, share an essential sadness, but it is a sadness deflected by humor, because these are witty women and they use their wit to devastating effect.

The thing is: I think maybe I just should have been born Jewish. That way I could have a heritage without having to be religious. I just love these Jewish characters and I loved the Jewish women in the Grace Paley short stories I just read. I must have lived in NYC in a past life. Or maybe I will in a future life!

A random speech from the second play, Isn’t It Romantic:

HARRIET: Mother, do you think it’s possible to be married or live with a man, have a good relationship and children that you share equal responsibility for, build a career, and still read novels, play the piano, have women friends, and swim twice a week?

In the third play, The Heidi Chronicles, Heidi gives a talk to an alumnae group in 1986:

Well, you might be thinking, this is a woman’s meeting, so let’s give her the benefit of the doubt. After teaching at Columbia yesterday, Miss Holland probably attended a low-impact aerobics class with weights, picked up her children from school, took the older one to drawing-with-computers at the Metropolitan, and the younger one to swimming-with-gifted-children. On returning home, she immediately prepared grilled mesquite free-range chicken with balsamic vinegar and sun-dried tomatoes, advised her investment-banker, well-rounded husband on future finances for the City Ballet, put the children to bed, recited the favorite Greek myths and sex-education legends, dashed into the library to call the twenty-two-year-old squash player who is passionately in love with her to say they can only be friends, finished writing ten pages of a new book, took the remains of the mesquite free-range dinner to a church that feeds the homeless, massaged her husband’s feet, and relieved any fears that he “might” be getting old by “doing it” in the kitchen, read forty pages of the Inferno in Italian, took a deep breath, and put out the light. So after all this, we forgive Miss Holland for not preparing a speech today. She’s exemplary and exhausted.

If you are a baby-boomer or a feminist or an over-achiever or simply know someone who is, you might enjoy this quick-read that will give you something to relate to, to remember and to think about for a while. Those were the days. Five stars. One extra for the nostalgia. Winner: 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

I didn't have great expectations for this collection of plays. I've always thought Wendy Wasserstein was overrated and I've really disliked some of her other works (I hated "The Sisters Rosensweig...") What a pleasant surprise. I thought all three of these plays were beautifully constructed and interesting. Some cliches here and there and wow, these pieces are so so dated. But I think that that becomes almost charming, a la Thornton Wilder or William Inge. They are time capsules of a completely different, albiet not so long ago, era. I particularly liked "Isn't It Romantic?" which I imagine is the least known of the three. Still though, I hardly think "The Heidi Chronicles" is worthy of the Pulitzer Prize, which it won.

While "The Heidi Chronicles" was funny, sharp, and poignant, the other works are less well written.

It was a nice books. I enjoyed the plays enough, Isn’t it Romantic was my favorite. They were entertaining but nothing special. Not good, not bad.

I knew these plays would orient around feminism and the sort, but I didn't think they would be so exhaustive. All three plays shared the same theme and characterizations of people, i.e. of women -- beautiful, intellectual, independent, yet confused. The only play I somewhat enjoyed was Isn't it Romantic because the characters and dialogue were believable and the idea of compromise was relatable to a certain extent.


Harriet [daughter]: Well, I've made up my mind. I'm going to try to do it: have it all [career, child, and husband].
Lillian [mother]: Good for you. For your sake, I hope you can. Pauses. What's the matter, Harriet? Did I disillusion you?
Harriet: No, I'm afraid I'm just like you.
Lillian: Don't be afraid. You're younger.
Harriet: Mother, you're trying my patience.
Lillian: You sound just like me, dear.

plays

I had only been exposed to one of Wasserstein's plays, when I played the role of douche bag Paul Stuart in 'Isn't It Romantic' while still in high school. The subject matter was over our heads then and the play- even with having two very strong female leads- wasn't what it could have been. Still, it provided for an introduction to her work. Now, approaching 30, I picked up her plays, which include the aforementioned, and I most definitely understand the themes and complex, nuance struggles of the characters. I also understand Wasserstein's awards, accolades and fan base. She really was hitting the nail on the head with the prevailing gender role issues that were a part of the past three generations of American life. Her sincerity, keen observations, sarcasm and general optimism permeates what could be a very dark group of plays. Beautiful work. Very happy to reread 'Isn't It Romantic' especially.

My first foray into Wasserstein as a playwright.  I've been familiar with her name and story for quite some time, but hadn't read her.  So glad I did.  This compilation of three Wasserstein pieces began with Uncommon Women and Others, continued with Isn't It Romantic and ended with the incredible Heidi Chronicles.  Maybe the plays got better in succession or maybe I just became a more skilled Wasserstein reader as I experienced her more, I'm not sure.  So much reflected women's struggles with the world and with themselves.  Although I was never a 'Seven Sisters' girl, I remember those same feelings of wanting to take over the world while feeling inadequate to do much of anything.  The Heidi Chronicles was a bittersweet end to the compilation, as it ends with Heidi's single-mom-adoption of a little girl and hope for the future, while the contemporary reader knows that Wasserstein herself could only enjoy her single-momness for a few years before dying of lymphoma.