Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles was a huge success when it first played Off-Broadway and then on Broadway in 1988, praised for its accurate and moving portrait of a woman representative of her time. It won the Pulitzer, Tony, Drama Desk, and New York Drama Critics’ Circle awards for Best New Play. However, a Broadway revival in 2015 had trouble finding an audience and suffered a shortened run. When The New Jewish Theatre announced a production, I was curious to see how the play might hold up today.

I think it holds up quite well in this production. Wasserstein is a good playwright, building a plot with care, creating believable and interesting characters who deal in amusing, sometimes comic dialogue about significant issues in their lives and times. Granted, for a play that follows Heidi Holland from high school in the 1960s to a successful academic career as an art historian in the ’80s, the significant issues were there, and much was made of the playwright’s success in including them in the lives of her characters and making those characters representatives of their times.

But those issues have not all gone away. I appreciate being reminded of them, reconsidering them. More than the issues, however, what makes the play live today is the person considering those issues as they relate to her and help her to find a way to live her life.

That is splendidly clear in this production as directed by Ellie Schwetye with Emily Baker as Heidi. Baker’s Heidi went through the turmoil, troubles, and revelations in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and 80’s, working in presidential primaries, participating in feminist consciousness-raising groups, always trying to know what was right for her and how to do it. She was sometimes uncertain, unhappy, until in the final scenes, as a success in her profession, as a mother, as a friend of many, she is sure of who she is, proud of it, confident as she speaks. 

Will Bonfiglio nails exactly his character, Peter Patrone. He and Heidi met in high school and bonded at once. Though he is gay, he is probably her best friend. He becomes a hugely successful pediatrician in New York, and as gay friends die he opens a ward for children with AIDS.

Joel Moses also fits his character, Scoop Rosenbaum, a charismatic organizer Heidi meets in the Eugene McCarthy campaign who becomes the publisher of Boomer, the most popular magazine of that generation. He and Heidi have a hot romance for a time, but she fears being dominated by him, and the romance cools. But embers remain, and they continue to be friends. 

Kelly Howe plays Susan Johnston, Heidi’s friend from childhood. While in grad school, Susan invites Heidi to a women’s consciousness-raising group. Challenged, Heidi finds something she needs there. In her academic studies she focuses on neglected women painters. Susan, with a law degree, becomes the vice president of a new film production company and unsuccessfully invites Heidi to become a sitcom consultant.

A seasoned company of actors, Courtney Bailey, Paola Angeli, Ashwini Aurora, and Joshua Mayfield, double as a dozen of Heidi’s friends and acquaintances, all pulled together with the others in the cast by director Ellie Schwetye.

Patrick Huber did as usual the fine scenic and lighting design, the second designer I’ve seen recently to make use of the Greek periaktos for quick and convincing scene changes. Michele Friedman Siler as usual designed costumes appropriately and attractively. Kareem Deanes designed projections that enriched the stage, and director Schwetye designed the sound. Kathryn Ballard is the Production Stage Manager. 

I’m happy that The Heidi Chronicles at The New Jewish Theatre is still such fine and enjoyable theatre.

—Bob Wilcox

Photo by Jon Gitchoff
From the left, Emily Baker as Heidi and Joel Moses as Scoop.

Review of <em>The Heidi Chronicles</em> at The New Jewish Theatre