In 1989 Wendy Wasserstein’s play hit Broadway hard, dealing with her fervent feelings about women’s liberation which began with her graduation from high school just as the 1960s were rolling in. She begins the play at that graduation, and the first act concerns itself with her emergence as a woman, along with her growing awareness that she had found her cause. Others felt the same way; black civil rights, the Vietnam War and Women’s Lib were all in the headlines during that turbulent decade. She was certainly an aware supporter of most civic causes, but as she attains prominence as an art historian, the group she gathered to march protested for “More Women In Art,” demanding the imbalance between women and men in that area be corrected.
She called her play The Heidi Chronicles, for the first act takes us, in a series of scenes, into the mating game when again she finds she and her best friend Susan have a different approach to mixing and mingling. Her friend is happy to pick up her skirts and fly into the adventurous nights; she is not, and finds herself falling for the self-deprecating, bright, and very loving Peter Petrone who seeks her, but only as a friend and confidant. In the moving second act, she comes to terms with Peter and cherishes him as he grows into a very useful pediatric doctor.
“Scoop Rosenberg” is another suitor who sets his cap for her, but ultimately turns toward a more sensible match with a woman whose yin is more akin to his yang. Peter, Scoop, and Susan form the rocks on which Heidi’s personal life rests, as she emerges as a grown woman. In her address to a gathering of her high school’s alumni, she seems to take eloquently off the cuff, so very honestly, about the loneliness and satisfaction in living this life on one’s particular terms, with respect and even admiration for those who might make more conventional choices.
The current production, now playing at the Music Box Theatre has been directed by Pam McKinnon with a deft and unhurried hand. For starters, she’s assembled an absolutely first-rate cast to defang the very rare cliche, the over extended joke, but always we return to the humor, the truth, the fearlessness in Wasserstein’s best work, of which this is surely an example.
Elizabeth Moss as Heidi, proves an actress of great range, particularly if you consider the stretch she offers between her character on Mad Men and this tender, charming and determined Heidi Holland. Her gentlemen callers, Peter Petrone as played by the brilliant Bryce Pinkham (in which he played the murderer in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) and Scoop Rosenbaum who is refreshingly blunt but appealing as he is handed to us in the capable hands of Jason Biggs, new to me, recently spotted on Netflix’s series “Orange is the New Black.”
The new Broadway seems to be a series of beautifully mounted, impeccably cast revivals of former successes. New plays are the backbone of off Broadway now. Only the occasional new light comedy with a popular star or six (Fish in the Dark, It’s Only A Play) is making the grade on the Main Stem, but revivals like this one are welcome, and flooding the Broadway box offices. Yes, 14-18 weeks of “limited engagements” are the new long runs but packed houses and happy audiences for four or five months is probably doing the trick for all the concerned parties. So — hello, from New York!
The Heidi Chronicles is playing at the Music Box Theatre – 239 West 45th Street, in New York, NY. For tickets, call (212) 239-6200, or purchase them online.