Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Wasserstein, Wendy (Vol. 183) - Claudia Barnett (review date December 1997)
Wasserstein, Wendy (Vol. 183) - Claudia Barnett (review date December 1997)
Claudia Barnett (review date December 1997)
SOURCE: Barnett, Claudia. Review of An American Daughter, by Wendy Wasserstein. Theatre Journal 49, no. 4 (December 1997): 520-21.
[In the following review, Barnett appraises the cultural significance of An American Daughter, contrasting its feminist perspective with that of The Heidi Chronicles.]
Wendy Wasserstein's earlier protagonists would consider Lyssa Dent Hughes [in An American Daughter] “pretty fucking amazing” and would say she “has it all.” Compared to Heidi Holland, Janie Blumberg, and even Sara Goode, she knows what she wants. Wife, mother, and doctor, she has been nominated as Surgeon General of the United States. Confident and assured, she talks about health issues on national television. But she follows the rules she has learned from her father, a senator, not realizing that a different code applies to women—that she must play not only political...
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- Introduction
- Principal Works
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Criticism
- Wendy Wasserstein and Esther Cohen (interview date August 1987)
- Gerald Weales (review date 5 May 1989)
- Joanne Kirschner (review date 1990)
- Kate Davy (review date March 1990)
- Helene Keyssar (essay date March 1991)
- Wendy Wasserstein and The Playwright's Art (interview date 9 October 1991)
- Alex Raksin (review date 30 May 1993)
- Sheridan Morley (review date 20 August 1994)
- Stefan Kanfer (review date 7 November 1994)
- Richard Donahue (essay date 22 April 1996)
- Ilene Cooper (review date 1 June 1996)
- Stefan Kanfer (review date 7 April 1997)
- Claudia Barnett (review date December 1997)
- Stephen J. Whitfield (essay date 1997)
- Jan Balakian (essay date 1999)
- David Shengold (review date March 2000)
- Publishers Weekly (review date 23 April 2001)
- Miriam M. Chirico (essay date 2001)
- Further Reading
- Copyright
