Nov 10, 2009

The Heidi Chronicles | Introduction

Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles is her best-known play. It was first produced Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, December 11, 1988, running for three sold-out months, before moving to the Plymouth Theater on Broadway on March 9, 1989. The play averaged 90% full houses during its run and, in 1989, garnered numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for drama as well as the Antoinette Perry (Tony) and New York Drama Critics’ Circle awards for best play. Other honors include the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Dramatists Guild’s Hull-Warriner Award, and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award for women playwrights.

Following its debut, critical reaction to The Heidi Chronicles was mixed. Many praised Wasserstein for her unflinching portrayal of the Baby Boom generation’s coming of age. Heidi is a character typical of many women born in the post- World War II era: she is intelligent, well-educated, and attempting to make it in a society dominated by men. While many critics admired the events Wasserstein depicts, some faulted her for undermining the play’s serious issues with sitcom humor, half-baked characters like the indecisive Susan Johnston, and a contrived ending.

Many feminists also found fault with The Heidi Chronicles. While some were happy that a play with strong feminist themes was a mainstream success, they were displeased with Wasserstein’s negative comments (primarily through the voices of her male characters) on the woman’s movement. The title character Heidi is often a mute observer, dominated by her two male friends, Scoop and Peter. Feminists believed that Wasserstein blames the women’s movement for the fact that women are trivial and men more serious.

Despite such complaints, The Heidi Chronicles is largely seen as a success in the subgenre of feminist theatre. The play distinguished Wasserstein as a significant dramatic voice of the Baby Boom generation. Political/gender issues aside, most critics and viewers found the play to be entertaining and few could deny Wasserstein’s facility with comedic dialogue. Moreover, many women did relate to Heidi’s search for her own identity and the anguish she suffers as a woman in modern society.

The Heidi Chronicles Summary

Act I, prologue
The Heidi Chronicles opens in a lecture hall at Columbia University in 1989. Heidi Holland, a forty-year-old art history professor, delivers a lecture on three women artists, Sofonisba Anguissola, Clara Peeters, and Lilly Martin Spencer. She points out that while these women were either highly regarded in their time and/or extremely talented, they are virtually unknown today.

Act I, scene 1
The year is 1965, the setting a high school in Chicago. Sixteen-year-old Heidi attends a dance with her friend Susan Johnston. When the scene begins, Heidi and Susan look out at the dance floor singing along to ‘‘The Shoop Shoop Song.’’ A boy, Chris Boxer, asks Heidi to dance, but she declines, telling him she doesn’t want to leave her friend. When a ladies’ choice dance is called, Susan hikes up her skirt and runs out on the floor to ask a boy she likes to dance, leaving Heidi alone. Heidi sits down and pulls out a book, Death Not Be Proud. A boy named Peter Patrone approaches her, complimenting her with ‘‘You look so bored you must be bright.’’ They talk, and Peter teaches her a dance.

Act I, scene 2
It is now 1968, and Heidi attends a dance in Manchester, New Hampshire, for the volunteers and supporters of presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. Heidi lingers near the food table and is approached by Scoop Rosenbaum. Scoop is overbearing, cutting down her every opinion. Heidi tries to evade him by saying her name is Susan Johnston, until he points out that she is wearing a nametag. Scoop tries to impress her with his intelligence, his work as a journalist, and his well-read opinions. Although he is derogatory toward her, he admits that he wants to have sex with Heidi. At the end of the scene, they passionately kiss.

Act I, scene 3
This scene takes place in 1970 in a church basement in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Jill, a fortyyear- old mother of four and Fran, a thirty-year-old lesbian feminist, lead a women’s consciousnessraising group. Among the attendees are Becky, a seventeen-year-old abandoned by her parents and living with an abusive boyfriend, Heidi, and Susan. Susan is now a law student, while Heidi attends graduate school at Yale. The group is concerned with empowering themselves. As they sit in a circle and talk, Heidi tries to not make waves by keeping her opinions and feelings to herself. Heidi finds herself drawn into their dialogue, and she talks about her relationship with Scoop. She reveals that she drops everything to see him, realizing that she lets him define how she feels about herself. The scene ends with the group singing a camp song.

Act I, scene 4
Heidi and Debbie, a new friend, protest the lack of women artists included in exhibits at the Chicago Art Institute in 1974. They plan to march on the curator’s office. Peter enters and chants sarcastically, making... » Complete The Heidi Chronicles Summary