The Heidi Chronicles | Portrait of a Lady
Characterizing The Heidi Chronicles as Wasserstein’s ‘‘best work to date,’’ Kramer offers a positive review of the play’s Off-Broadway debut. Praising the playwright for avoiding moralizing in her work, the critic assesses that ‘‘Wasserstein’s portrait of womanhood always remains complex.’’
At the emotional turning point of ‘‘The Heidi Chronicles,’’ Wendy Wasserstein’s manless heroine Heidi Holland (Joan Allen), an essayist and art-history professor, is supposed to deliver a speech at the Plaza Hotel. The occasion for the speech is an alumnae luncheon, the topic ‘‘Women, Where Are We Going?’’ We’ve seen Heidi speak in public before—in the classroom sequences that, prologuelike, begin each act—and we’ve grown familiar with the mock girls’-school bonhomie she exhibits toward the women painters who constitute her particular area of expertise....
[The entire page is 1550 words long]
Join eNotes
The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:
Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
Tell a friend about The Heidi Chronicles at eNotes.
