[In the following excerpt, Kanfer reviews a revival of Uncommon Women and Others, situating his assessment in light of Wasserstein's accomplishments since the play's original premiere.]

Wendy Wasserstein has yet to become a Nobel Laureate. But she has been given just about every other honor: the Pulitzer Prize, plus the Tony, New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Outer Circle awards. All these kudos lead to two possible conclusions: Either Wasserstein is one of the most original and brilliant talents of our age, or contemporary theatrical standards are so debased that a sitcom writer can be elevated to superstar status. The latter seems more accurate to me.

In her two big hits, The Heidi Chronicles and The Sisters Rosensweig, the playwright created a new, self-mocking feminist. Audiences fell hard; Wasserstein found herself acclaimed as Broadway's mistress of comic aperçus and off-the-wall allusions. An exchange in Heidi is typical:

SUSAN:
Are you writing?
HEIDI:
A little. “Women and Art.” “Women and Madness.” “Women and Bran.” The usual.
SUSAN:
I just broke up with my boyfriend. He's fabulous. He's 56, he's still married, and he doesn't want to start another family. And I at least want to keep my options open. I tell you, Heidi, it's rough. Every other woman I know is either pregnant or just miscarried. Honestly, I've been to more fertility lunches.
HEIDI:
I'm planning to start my family at 60. I hear there's a hormone in Brazil.

Wasserstein's next smash tried to evoke the existential atmosphere of Chekhov's Three Sisters. She tells us in her Introduction to the printed text of Rosensweig: “One of my favorite people in this play confesses … ‘You don't know what it's like to have absolutely no idea who you are!’ Despite their maturity, most of the characters in the play are struggling with who they are.”

Actually, who they are is comediennes, like almost all of the playwright's women. No matter how sober her intent, Wasserstein the philosopher is continually undone by Wasserstein the gagmeister. Here is one of the sisters, a part-time broadcaster and full-time yenta, discussing an author of self-help books with her older sister's suitor:

MERV:
I've heard of Pearlstein. Didn't he write I Learned Everything but Handwriting in the First Grade?
GORGEOUS:
Try Learning to Love Again, Learning to Live Again. Only 26 months on every bestseller list.
MERV:
Of course. He was recently indicted.
GORGEOUS:
Rabbi Pearlstein is a great man. His accountant is evil.

Given the extravagant critical welcome and the outlandish box-office success of these plays, it was inevitable that someone would want to revive Wasserstein's early work. That was the first mistake. The second was assuming that a 17-year-old drama, Uncommon Women and Others, would remain fresh. The errors are understandable. Uncommon Women sounds promising enough, with its cast of eight lively undergraduates at an unnamed college for women. The time is the early '70s. Although shock waves of feminism are reverberating in its classrooms, the college sticks by its tradition of Gracious Living, a rite of Earl Grey, finger sandwiches and gossip. An elderly gorgon, Mrs. Plumm (Rosemary Murphy) enforces decorum: “I can't permit you to come to tea in pants. It's not fair to the other girls.”

Even in Wasserstein's salad days she had an eye for the revealing detail. Susie (Robin Morse) advises a catatonic freshman (Danielle Ferland). “If you have any questions or you just want to talk about psychology, knock on my door. It has the Snoopy calendar on it. I got the calendar as a present from Kenny at Harvard. I used to date Wharton, but that was before I knew what I wanted.” An entire character resides in those words. Unfortunately, Susie hangs around for the rest of the evening spouting similar lines, all of them fatuous.

Few of her colleagues have greater appeal. Holly (Julie Dretzin), the requisite Jewish girl, is supposed to be a poignant outsider. Instead she comes on like a standup performer at the Improv, and one half expects an exposed brick wall to materialize at her back: “Whenever I see a boy with a yarmulke, I think he has a diaphragm on his head. I shouldn't have said that. I'll be struck down by a burning bush.”

The others are as carefully varied as a bomber crew in a World War II movie. Kate (Stephanie Roth) is a careerist already on the prowl for a corner office. Leilah (Joan Buddenhagen) is a budding anthropologist with her eyes on the sarcophagi—and the men—of the Middle East. Samantha (Mary McCann) is, in the words of her creator, “like a Shetland cable-knit sweater, a classic.” Muffet (Haviland Morris) is given to arch soliloquies: “This class isn't half bad. We read all the basics: the womb-penis inner-and-outer-space nonsense, The Feminine Mystique, Sexual Politics, Mabel Dodge's diary. … Do you think women will lose their relevancy in five years? Like Car 54, Where Are You?” Rita (Jessica Lundy) is the wild one, waving the books of Germaine Greer and igniting verbal grenades in the dorms: “We need to talk about masturbation.” All this is punctuated by announcements from an unseen Voice (Forrest Sawyer) ironically declaiming from the college catalog: “Just like the pot of honey that kept renewing itself, an educated woman's capacity for giving is not exhausted, but stimulated, by demands.”

Despite Carole Rothman's crisp direction, these personalities never mesh. Wasserstein had exceptional fortune in 1977; her cast included Swoosie Kurtz, Jill Eikenberry, Glenn Close, and Meryl Streep. At the Lucille Lortel Theater in Greenwich Village the luck has run out. With the single exception of the Rabelaisian Lundy, the actresses are depressing when they should be comic, and unintentionally funny when the playwright means them to be moving. Jennifer von Mayrhauser's costumes seem wittier than the dialogue, and Heidi Landesman's set is more convincing than the people it surrounds. At 44, Wasserstein has plenty of time to write plays commensurate with her reputation. To that day, even her detractors can look forward. As this production shows, only her most uncritical fans should look backward.