Contemporary Literary Criticism | Wasserstein, Wendy (Vol. 183) - Gerald Weales (review date 5 May 1989)

Gerald Weales (review date 5 May 1989)

SOURCE: Weales, Gerald. “Prize Problems: Chronicles & Cocktail Hour.” Commonweal 116, no. 9 (5 May 1989): 279-80.

[In the following review, Weales highlights the weaknesses of The Heidi Chronicles, examining the effects of its protagonist's flat characterization on the whole play.]

Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles began as a workshop production at the Seattle Repertory Theatre; then, shepherded by the Seattle Rep's Daniel Sullivan, it moved to a well-received off-Broadway debut and then to Broadway; it has now been blessed by the Pulitzer Prize committee. It is a typical American-theater success story of the 1980s, but I have trouble working up much enthusiasm for its triumphant journey.

The Heidi of the title is an art historian, a presumably intelligent and sensitive woman who moves from 1965 to 1989, picking her way through the ideational thickets of...

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