The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein

The Heidi Chronicles Reviews

• 
  Brina

  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.
• 
  Andrea Laurion

  It's funny, the elements that made this play groundbreaking 30 years ago are what make it sound dated now. Doesn't take away from it's importance.
• 
  Derek

  Although the play seems slightly dated, it’s filled with interesting ideas and intelligent dialogue. The play’s unwillingness to settle on either comedy or tragedy felt similar to some of Woody Allen’s most original and complex movie scripts.
• 
  Becca Morello

  Wow. Amazing. "The Heidi Chronicles" captivated me in ways I never expected! This witty, fast-paced and enchanting play culminates with a chilling reality about careers, love, marriage, friendship and the ups and downs of life. "The Heidi Chronicles" resonated with me on so many levels and I look forward to seeing it on stage soon. Better yet, I look forward to someday portraying Heidi on stage. Highly recommend.
• 
  Bradley

  I'm on a bit of a Wendy Wasserstein kick. This play won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony in 1989. Even though the play is over 20 years old, the themes presented are still valid.
• 
  Grace Deadmore

  solid play. really enjoyed it and it’s commentary
• 
  Gorfo

  The Heidi Chronicles is a coming of age novel that leaves the reader feeling empty, disappointed and more than a little depressed. The main character comes of age during a time of change and movement from the time spanning the 1960's-to the early 90's. With all of this change surrounding her Heidi feels compelled to action and finds herself fiercely advocating for the representation of women in art. However through all of this she finds herself lonely and unfulfilled. Her romantic life center mainly around two men, Peter Patron and Scoop Rosenbaum, however each one has a surprise for her.
  
  Besides the fact that I hated the main character the story itself was pretty good I guess. GUESS being the operative word. The play is a disjointed mess, that lacked the fluidity which most readers (or viewers) need in order to keep up with the story. The so called "witty banter" reeked of forced artsyness and I felt an extreme disappointment that this play had won awards and was considered great American writing.
  
  But maybe the play actually would be good for somebody who was 16 in 1965 and could understand all the references. OH THE REFERENCES!!! Without a proper understanding of these references it's impossible to garner any sort of appreciation for the book and that in itself is a problem. It doesn't have the timelessness of a true play (cough cough...SHAKESPEARE...cough cough OSCAR WILDE). And therefore god willing it will slip quietly into oblivion within the next decade or so.
• 
  Carrie Ridgeway

  I listened to the audio version of the play from Library2Go. The story was pretty good. Enjoyed the interview with the author at the end.
• 
  Jason

  I adore Wendy Wasserstein's work and this is my favorite. I'v always wanted to play Peter in a production. A great look a life!
• 
  Steven

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

  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.
• 
  Kim

  This was the second play I’ve read this month. I was a teen in the 80s, so I have heard about this play and Wendy Wasserstein since the play came out, but I never saw the play or really knew anything more than that it was an overview of one woman’s life and that it had a feminist message. I found the play much more confusing than I expected. There was a lot of weird banter, and I think the political references are getting so out of date they are hard to relate to, but the feeling of being a baby boomer white woman coming of age in the latter part of the 20th century and realizing that you were sold a bill of goods is still relatable. Heidi is a particular kind of person—from a privileged background, idealistic, independent. I kept picturing Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. I would’ve loved to discuss this play in a class or with a book group because so much could be said about it. I’m glad I read it. I hope I get to see it performed sometime but someone should try to do a new version. The baby boomers are fading now. I mean I’m gen-X and even *I* am getting old so where is the feminist play of this new generation? If someone knows a new playwright who has written something similar that I should read, please leave a comment. I am just scratching the surface of dramatic reading, and came to it haphazardly so I could use some direction. I mean it’s not like the questions have changed all that much for women—I’d love to be able to compare. Anyway, this play made me think a whole lot about stuff other than the play itself and that is a weird reading experience.
• 
  Lucas Miller

  Wowowow, so funny. Moved so quickly. Wendy is a genius.
  
  Follows the life of Heidi over the course of her womanhood, starting in the 60’s when she and the rest of her college-aged gal pals are listening to the Beatles, taking birth control, and burning their bras to the 80’s where she is a successful art historian and professor at Columbia who pursued her career first and foremost over starting a family, prompting insecurity about the things she gave up in order to achieve what she got. This is perfectly juxtaposed by the love of her life Scoop, whom she didn’t marry because of her career. He marries a girl for money, starts a family, and continually seeks happiness through affairs. Also, there’s Heidi’s gay best friend Peter, whom she continually puts on the back burner who is a gay successful pediatrician living in NYC in the midst of the AIDS crisis.
  
  When it’s all said and done, the point is, if you are the one making the decision for your life, it is a life well-lived. You make your own rules and boomers, who we all make fun of daily, led the charge for gender and sexual liberation.
• 
  Michael McClain

  What struck me most about The Heidi Chronicles was Heidi's uncertainty as time marches on and she becomes increasingly lost and frustrated dealing with the repercussions of what she fought for back in the '60's and '70's. I think I expected a more confident, self-assured Heidi when I began but what Wendy Wasserstein gave us was a more complex, ambivalent portrait. Heidi even compares herself to a Heffalump and gurrrrllll. Same.
  Heidi's heartbreaking speech in Act 2, Scene 4 is the perfect distillation of what Wasserstein's aiming to bring to the surface: wasn't the feminist movement supposed to bring women together? If so, why does Heidi feel so alone?
  
• 
  LoriO

  Some plays read better than others; this is one I think needs the nuance of voice and facial expressions to help with comprehension. I can't believe I've never seen this performed! Anyway, there are bits I'm just not sure I understood, characters I'm just not sure how I'm supposed to feel about. But the language is so spot on and the banter is so real...I trust that, when seen and heard, all would be revealed.
  
  As an aside, I also find amusing the fact that this reads, and strongly, as a period piece now, when it was actually set in the then near future when first performed.
• 
  Anne

  Really loved the female-based narrative and the discussions the characters have that women have in real life about perceived timelines and "can they have it all." For a play that came out in 1988, it was surprisingly open to the gay narrative, though there was a joke that was supposed to be a double-entendre alluding to the gay character but in actuality connected homosexuality to pedophilia - hence not 5 stars.
• 
  Natalie

  I picked this up for an audition monologue, and I liked it much more than I was expecting to after hating Uncommon Women and Others! Almost 30 years on, it didn't feel particularly groundbreaking to me (especially not after having read several other Baby Boomer Retrospectives), but the characters were interesting, and several of the scenes were comedic gold.
• 
  Anna Fitzgerald

  I didn't find the characters overly interesting and watched them passively from a distance as if they were a bit flat. However, I read a lot of plays and what I did like was the approach of the interconnected scenes moving back and forth through time. That kept the pace moving forward and was refreshing.
• 
  Ray

  Exceptionally well written by Wendy Wasserstein. Heidi, an art historian spanning the time between 1965 and 1989, meets many women, mostly feminists, along with a couple of men who influence her decisions as she searches for the answers to life. Very thought-provoking. Might work better on a stage, rather than in print.
• 
  Nick

  My first brush with this play was also my professional acting debut. I had been in a number of local productions, but this was my first taste of regional theatre. Reading it again after a number of years, I'm surprised by how urgent all the gender issues still are. That's depressing on the one hand, but means that we have to give the hat tip to Wendy on the other hand. And keep soldiering on.
• 
  MaryAnn Kelling

  Coming to a theater near you (Carleton College, Northfield MN) this fall. It has potential to be a good one. The script follows the life of Heidi and the path she takes to define herself as a woman and a person. It begins the mid 1960's when Heidi is a teenager and ends in the late 1980's.
• 
  Sarah

  Reading a play is never as good as watching a play.
  
  Follows Heidi in her quest to "have it all." At times it is insightful but I feel like ending the play with Heidi adopting a baby as the way to find happiness was...unfortunate.
• 
  Mrs. Owens

  Reading a play is never as good as watching a play.
  
  Follows Heidi in her quest to "have it all." At times it is insightful but I feel like ending the play with Heidi adopting a baby as the way to find happiness was...unfortunate.
• 
  Sharon Kuromiya

  Listened to the play on audio. It was so stupid and shallow that I could hardly bear to sit through it. It's not that it hasn't aged well. Dunning-Kruger in action? Playwright has no idea how much she doesn't know about what was really going on.
• 
  Joseph Hillyard

  Another play I read for class but forgot to log during the year. Although the structure is somewhat dated, the strength of the dialogue and the richly developed characters easily overcome any of these minor flaws.
• 
  A.D. Elliott

  A look into a life of a feminist. Heidi is my new inspiration for off hand and witty remarks.
• 
  Steve

  It's only April but we have a top contender for the worst play read in 2018. A boring slog through three decades with empty, soulless characters.
• 
  Melissa

  Quite witty. I was with her up until the final act.