Birthday Book Recs 30/50 : The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein
The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein
Birthday Book Recs: 30/50
The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein
During my senior year of college and then for a year or two after, I was completely obsessed with the late playwright Wendy Wasserstein. (I even spent evenings after work at the Central Square branch of the Cambridge Public Library trying to write a play…lol???) Entranced by this woman who had a background so different than my own (Brooklyn childhood, graduate of Mount Holyoke in a post-Betty Friedan era, connoisseur of Lanz nightgowns [this felt like a Wendy Wasserstein trademark for some reason…]), I found that I could observe this whole scene as an interloper once I found myself in the Northeast and understood it more. It was all so fascinating and exotic (to me)! The Pulitzer-winning play The Heidi Chronicles — a look at changing women’s roles from the 1960s to 80s from the perspective of an art historian named Heidi Holland — is considered her magnum opus, but *everything* she wrote is funny and sharp, including her 1990 essay collection Bachelor Girls.
Reading a play — a script with stage directions! — is interesting. (Try it. 🎭)
I loved all the hearts that fluttered up my phone screen when I shared a pic of The Heidi Chronicles in stories as I was unpacking books a couple of months ago. I feel like Wendy would have had a lot to say about social media, and I’m very sorry that she’s not here to do so.
{Also, consider this my resolution to see more theatre this year. Seattle has always had an amazing theatre scene — in fact, The Heidi Chronicles was first workshopped at the Seattle Rep in 1988 — and I grew up seeing so many great plays. My parents make a point to go to plays all the time. I gotta up my game.}
You can find all my 50th Birthday Book Recommendations HERE.
originally published on instagram