[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 candidate, but also “American daughter,” a role in which competence must be matched by femininity. Her downfall occurs when, in an interview in act 1, she admits she never served on a jury and, more damaging, refers to her deceased mother as “an ordinary Indiana housewife who made icebox cakes and pimento cheese canapés.” Indiana housewives picket, public opinion drops, and Lyssa is forced to withdraw her candidacy.

Kate Nelligan portrays Lyssa with a great sense of calm, even during the storm, exuding a self-confidence that accounts for her character's lack of popularity. Wearing tunics and leggings, her straight hair a practical length, she seems always at ease. Lyssa's perfection would be boring if not for two incidents in the first act of the play. In the first, she finds her husband Walter kissing “neo-feminist” commentator Quincy Quince in their living room after the interview brunch and forces him to take Quincy home; in the second, when her friend Judith arrives drenched, following the same brunch, and announces she has tried to drown herself, Lyssa accuses her of self absorption. Instead of stereotypical jealousy and sympathy, she offers a practicality that forces Walter and Judith to grow up. In the second act, she momentarily succumbs to the advice of her father's spin doctor with a follow-up interview orchestrated to appease the offended housewives. When she glides down the staircase wearing a slate-blue suit with matching headband, she looks exactly like Hillary Rodham Clinton—which is no accident.

The cast of characters includes both recognizable types and unexpected combinations of types: a gay, pro-life conservative; an African American Jewish friend unable to conceive a child (played by Lynne Thigpen, who, between her comic timing and her character's acid wit, effectively steals the show); an elderly statesman father, a direct descendant of Ulysses S. Grant; and, of course, a husband threatened by his wife's success. Peter Riegert's Walter Hughes slouches and shuffles through his mid-life crisis, listening to the greatest hits of the Beach Boys, fantasizing about a girl from high school, suggesting sex with Lyssa in the Volvo. Lyssa accommodates his pathos, pretending to be that girl and leading him out to their car, suggesting that having it all actually means having to take care of it all. Meanwhile her father's seemingly mousy wife, Charlotte, stands by her man and smiles when he calls her “Chubby.” In the first act, she repeatedly asks for “fizzy water.” In the second act, when the men are offstage, she reveals her claws and threatens Lyssa, who has become a liability to her father's career. If Lyssa were a man, she would have a wife like Charlotte and she would be Surgeon General.

If Lyssa were a man, this play might be set in an office or a restaurant, but this woman's drama takes place in the home. John Lee Beatty's set comprises a lavish yet comfortable living room. A front door, glass doors to the garden, entryways to the dining room and the study, and even a staircase ironically offer no exit for Lyssa, who never leaves her home. Instead, her oppressions enter through these portals, including Judith and Quincy who let themselves in through the open glass doors. Judith comically yet pointedly utters warnings against uninvited guests—the worst of whom enter formally, through the front door. Lyssa's children are positioned upstairs, their disembodied voices keeping her apprised of her dips in popularity. Her world closes in on her as the play progresses. The television crew in act 2 rearranges her furniture and adds a bouquet of flowers to her coffee table, making the room seem suddenly stifling. At this point, Lyssa looks as gawky as a tomboy at her first dance, dressed in her mother's idea of good taste, her clothing and her home on loan from an imaginary stranger. After Lyssa gives up the race, she reclaims her territory, leaving the play with a bittersweet conclusion: Lyssa, for the first time, ascends the stairs to mother her sons.

Echoes of The Heidi Chronicles reverberate throughout An American Daughter. Quincy Quince is a more obnoxious version of Heidi's Denise, the twenty-something success story who suggests that the previous generation of feminists has made “mistakes.” The long-legged, scantily clad Quincy, played with simplicity and audacity by Elizabeth Marvel, announces that she will write two more books and bear children before entering public life; on behalf of her generation, she glibly thanks Lyssa for her “efforts,” going on to explain: “We, on the other hand, want to come home to a warm penis.” While Lyssa is no Heidi, she is exactly what many of us wanted Heidi to be: someone who stands up for herself. When Heidi is interviewed on television with two male friends, she cannot get a word in edgewise. When Lyssa is sandwiched between her father and husband for the follow-up interview and the reporter asks the men all the questions, however, Lyssa interrupts and takes over—and then even her headband cannot help her.

An American Daughter is ultimately disappointing, oddly enough because Lyssa is not Heidi. Wasserstein has given us what we want in a woman, but not in a dramatic character, and Nelligan is charming yet static in the role. Lyssa's conflicts are external and her personal struggles—even her husband's infidelity—are mitigated; her two surprising choices in the first half of the play are not enough to sustain our interest through two acts. During the second interview, she articulates every nuance of her position, making it unnecessary for her audience to ponder the character or the issues. We are told what to think and we agree—a little too easily.