“Heidi High, Heidi
Low”
A quarter
of a century ago, in November 1988, the late Wendy Wasserstein’s topical comedy
about the early decades of women’s lib, THE HEIDI CHRONICLES, opened Off
Broadway, becoming so successful it moved in March 1989 to Broadway. It won the
Tony (a first for a female dramatist) and the Pulitzer, among other awards, and
was named one of the 1988-1989 season’s Ten Best Plays. Now, with Elisabeth
Moss of TV’s “Mad Men” as Heidi, a role originally played by Joan Allen, the
play is getting its first New York revival, and it appears the bloom is off the
rose.
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| From left: Tracee Chimo, Leighton Bryant, Elise Kibler, Photo: Joan Marcus. |
While Ms.
Wasserstein’s concerns with feminist issues remain as pertinent as ever (think Sheryl
Sandberg’s mega seller LEAN IN), the play, at least in Pam McKinnon’s staging, has
a dated quality and—despite some strong laughs—isn’t as funny as it once was.
Partly, this is because topical dramas often speak so much to their own times
that seeing them even twenty-five years or so later makes them seem, if not
exactly quaint, then interesting more for their time capsule qualities than for
their immediacy. After all, aren’t these issues familiar to everyone by now? Partly
it stems from Ms. McKinnon’s unsubtle direction (so sharply different from her WHO’S
AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? of two seasons ago), which fails to prevent the otherwise
talented actors from seeming more like stereotypical attitudes than real
people.
 |
| From left: Ali Ahn, Leighton Bryant, Elise Kibler. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Chronicled
here is the development of America’s women’s movement from the 1960s through
the 1980s as seen through the personal and professional difficulties of Heidi
Holland, an art historian and college professor specializing in forgotten women
artists in a field traditionally dominated by men. More or less passively, she watches events transpire, seeking to find her way through the changing landscape as her life intersects, to her confusion, with the goals of female empowerment.
The play’s two acts and thirteen
scenes shift swiftly on the cleverly flexible turntable set designed by John Lee
Beatty, abetted by excellent projection design from Peter Nigrini. After the prologues that begin each act showing Heidi giving a slide
lecture, we follow her life from a high school dance in 1965 to 1989, when, unwed, she lives alone with her newly adopted baby. The action
progresses, with each scene set several years after the preceding one, and with
golden oldies setting the tone (“It’s In His Kiss (The Shoop Shoop Song,” “Piece
of My Heart,” “Respect,” “Imagine,” “You Send Me,” etc.). Jill BC Du Boff is responsible for the fine sound design (loved those pre-Power Point slide projector clicks).
 |
| From left: Tracee Chimo, Jason Biggs, Elisabeth Moss, Bryce Pinkham. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Heidi’s principal
male friends—both of them inveterate talkers—are Peter Patrone
(Bryce Pinkham), whom she meets at that high school dance, and Scoop
Rosenbaum (Jason Biggs), who, during her college years, comes on to her at a Eugene
McCarthy rally in New Hampshire. Peter, who becomes an important pediatrician,
is gay and thus—despite his and Heidi’s deep mutual affection—romantically unavailable.
The super-smart but smugly superior Scoop, a lawyer, progresses from political
radicalism to commercial success as the publisher of a popular lifestyle
magazine. Peter’s homosexuality is an important side issue, especially given
the play’s appearance during the height of the 1980s AIDS epidemic.
Scoop, despite his seeming compatibility with Heidi, who
loves him, marries the less challenging Memphis belle, Lisa Friedlander (Leighton
Bryan), since Heidi refuses to compromise her ambitions for a husband’s needs.
Heidi, unable to have it all, achieves professional but not personal
fulfillment.
 |
| Elisabeth Moss, Jason Biggs. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
The
episodic play’s scenes are generally pumped up by Ms. McKinnon for laughs,
making them more like satirical sketches than believable events. These include
one in which Heidi takes part in a consciousness raising group, one of whose caricature-like
members, Fran (Tracee Chimo), is an outspoken lesbian (“Either you shave your
legs or you don’t,” she insists), while, in another, Heidi participates in a
protest outside a Chicago museum that has neglected women artists. There’s also
an over-the-top TV interview showing Heidi being constantly interrupted by Scoop
and Peter, as well as a restaurant scene during which we watch her best friend,
Susan (Ali Ahn), earlier seen as a women’s rights activist, behaving boorishly
as the shallow, celebrity-obsessed TV producer she’s become. Of course,
watching the changing clothing (costumes are by Jessica Pabst) and (women’s) hair
styles in these scenes can be amusing, but they, too, tend to be amplified for
comic effect.
 |
| Tracee Chimo, Ali Ahn. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Perhaps
the most effective scene comes at the end, when Scoop visits Heidi at her
almost empty new apartment (the furniture hasn’t been delivered yet), and they
work out some of their longstanding issues. Heidi expresses hope for the future, when her
daughter and Scoop's son might actually meet, and her daughter will “never think she’s worthless unless he lets her have it all.” But such touching moments
are too few and far between.
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| From left: Ali Ahn, Elisabeth Moss, Elise Kibler. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Ms. Moss
has a terrific scene when, standing at a podium and addressing a school
reunion, Heidi breaks down as she improvises a rambling, but thematically significant, speech about
how confused her life has made her feel; she even admits: “It’s just
that I feel stranded. And I thought the whole point was that we wouldn’t feel
stranded. I thought the point was that we were all in this together.” Otherwise,
however, the actress, while always grounded and less exaggerated than those
around her, offers little in the way of characterization you haven’t already
seen her do as the vulnerable but determined Peggy on “Mad Men.” Unlike what we
see of her friend Susan, Ms. Moss’s Heidi seems hardly to change through the
years.
Bryce
Pinkham, so brilliant in A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER, brings too
much musical comedy energy and mugging to the role of the gay pediatrician,
while Jason Biggs makes an acceptable if not particularly charismatic Scoop.
Apart from Ms. Ahn, the remaining cast members—Ms. Chimo, Ms. Bryant, Elise
Kibler, and Andy Truschinski—play multiple roles, several of them well done,
but others overacted.
Heidi
high, Heidi low.
THE HEIDI CHRONICLES
The Music Box
239 W. 45th Street, NYC
Open run
