JOURNAL OF AMERICAN DRAMA ANd THEAtRE 26, NO.

1 (WINtER 2014)

FEMINIST PERIODIZATION AS A STRUCTURAL COMpONENT Of WENDY WASSERSTEINS THE HEIDI CHRONIcLES Ahmed S. M. Mohammed
People are products of the time in which they came of age. I know that to be true. In my plays these women are very much of their times. Wendy Wasserstein1 Most scholarship and critical studies on the dramatic works of Wendy Wasserstein (19502006), during her lifetime and after her untimely death at the age of 55, have been largely concerned with her representation of the feminist question. More specifically, considerable attention has been paid to The Heidi Chronicles (1988), not only because the play won a series of honors, including the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Tony Award, and the Pulitzer Prize,2 but also because it presents serious issues germane to the evolving feminist sensibility.3 The play was a bona fide success when it premiered in 1988. First appearing at the Seattle Repertory Theatre in April 1988, The Heidi Chronicles opened offBroadway at Playwrights Horizons in New York City in November 1988 and moved to Broadways Plymouth Theatre on 9 March 1989. The play ran an impressive 622 performances.4 A television production premiered 15 October 1995.5 Critics have accentuated her awareness of gender issues, which, Wasserstein believed, still needed more vigorous attention. As Gwendolyn Hale notes, Wasserstein captured the plight of gender and theater when she stated, there arent enough plays by womenby and about women.6 Some feminist critics have not been completely satisfied with the representation and the treatment of feminist issues in Wassersteins plays and the plays of other women dramatists such as Beth Henley and Marsha Norman. These dramatists have been criticized
1 Qtd. in Jan Balakian, Reading the Plays of Wendy Wasserstein (Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre, 2010), 1.

Mary C. Hartig and Jackson R. Bryer, The Facts on File Companion to American Drama (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2010 ), 570.
2 3 Wiley Lee Umphlett, From Television to the Internet: Postmodern Visions of American media Culture in the Twentieth Century (New Jersey: Associated Universities Press, 2006), 159. 4 5

Ken Bloom, Broadway: An Encyclopedia (N.Y.: Routledge, 2012), 413.

Gail Ciociola, Wendy Wasserstein: Dramatizing Women, Their Choices and Their Boundaries (North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2005), 140.
6 Gwendolyn N. Hale, Gender and Theater, in Kimball King, ed. Western Drama Through the Ages: A Student Reference Guide (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 350.

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for not being more feminist.7 Although Angelika Czekay is certain that Wasserstein was tokenized as one of the central feminist playwrights of the past twenty years,8 she notices that Wassersteins plays have been subjected to feminist criticism. Jill Dolan, for example, regarded The Heidi Chronicles as an antifeminist9 play, but after Wassersteins death, Dolan admits that the dramatist was one of the few women playwrights to open a play directly on BroadwayAn American Daughter in 1997, and regrets that she and other feminist critics had only disparaged her writing and her prominence.10 In a comprehensive study of the most popular American plays, David Savran categorizes Wendy Wasserstein with Beth Henley and Marsha Norman, considering that their plays do what Alisa Solomon aptly describes . . . as representing intelligent, educated women, and assur[ing] us that they are funny for the same, traditional reasons women have always been funny.11 But, Savran does not seem to support Solomons generalization that their plays focus on the affluent and cultured, but most recycle these misogynist clichs and stereotypes in a surprisingly uncritical way.12 Wiley Lee Umphlett also classifies Wasserstein with Henley and Norman and indicates that they continued the feminist movement which had begun to define itself in the 60s in the output of Adrienne Kennedy and Megan Terry.13 In addition to the varied discussions of Wassersteins treatment of feminist issues, some critics have noted her use of chronology in developing the action of The Heidi Chronicles, but they seem to have overlooked the fact that this chronological order can be also considered a pivotal structural component. Therefore, in this article, I reinvestigate Wassersteins play and trace her reliance on feminist periodization as a schematic design of the entire dramatic structure. Primarily, this endeavor is based on the premise that periodization is viewed as a paradigm utilized by literary critics as they
7 8

Ibid.

Cited in Joan Herrington, ed. The Playwrights Muse (New York: Routledge, 2002), 3. (Czekays statement refers to the two decades before the year 2002 when Czekays article was published and it should be more than three decades now).
9 Jill Dolan, Geographies of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism and Performance (NC: Wesleyan University Press, 2001), 80.

Jill Dolan, Feminist Performance Criticism and the Popular: Reviewing Wendy Wasserstein, Theatre Journal 60, no. 3 (October 2008): 433-4.
10 11 David Savran, A Queer Sort of Materialism: Recontextualizing American Theater (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2006), 202. 12 13

Ibid. Umphlett, From Television to the Internet, 158.

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consider the placement of major authors, genres, and themes in relation to their traditional period affiliations.14 The paradigm includes three major domains: historical, literary, and feminist periodization. Periodization involves any general prototypal division of history into possibly perceived periods of time. As Horkheimer notes, human history has been divided into periods in very varying ways. The manner in which periodization has been carried out has not depended exclusively on the object, any more than other concept formations have; the current state of knowledge and the concerns of the knower have also played a part.15 A less sophisticated definition holds that periodization may be understood as an analytical prism through which times past are organized into meaningful clusters.16 The process of periodization may embody historical/categorical segmentation and classification. Therefore, the past might be divided into segments reducing time into calculable units regardless of their length. Notwithstanding, Radstone believes that theories of temporality and differences ought surely to raise questions about periodization itself.17 Payne and Barbera emphasize the use of modernity, as a historical periodization category having a dual function: it designates the contemporaneity of an epoch to the time of its classification, and, it registers this contemporaneity in terms of a qualitatively new, selftranscending temporality.18 Literary periodization of modernity is limited by two factors: newness of quality and contemporaneity of historical time. This sort of periodization does not focus on or distinguish writers on the basis of their gender, race, or ethnic origin, but rather on their similar interests, ideologies, and literary expressions. The second periodization norm is one that utilizes and relies on literary features. This sort of critical endeavor explores literary works on the basis of their most distinctive literary aspects within or outside their chronological register. According to Parker, this type of literary periodization has a curious status in critical writings: there is wide agreement about what periods do, general discontent at these activities, and no consensus
Lawrence Besserman, ed. The Challenge of Periodization: Old Paradigms and New Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 1996), xi.
14 15 Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays (New York: The Continuum Publ. Company, 2002), 47. 16 Alexander Orakhelashvili, ed. Research Handbook on the Theory and history of International Law (Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc., 2011), 379.

Susannah Radstone, The Sexual Politics of Time: Confession, Nostalgia, Memory (New York: Routledge, 2007), 95.
17 18 Michael Payne and Jessica Rae Barbera, eds. A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2010), 458.

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about alternatives to them.19 However, because literary periods are not strictly systematic or constant, studies on literary periodization may be only feasible when corresponding literary resemblances or common features exist in literary works written at any period of time irrespective of their contemporaneity. If gender is considered, there would be a more complicated dimension in the use and process of literary periods. Treating issues such as race and ethnicity together with gender leads to a number of inquiries: how can literary periods be established if the literary works break the boundaries of gender, time periods, colors, or ethnicities? This question does not allow simple or finite answers because it addresses entangled issues concerning categorization and periodization on the basis of thematic, gender, and ethnic bases within or outside historical boundaries. Feminist periodization has been recognized as a critical norm used to trace the development of the feminist situation in terms of historical phases. As Kelly-Gadol notes, Once we look to history for an understanding of womans situation, we are, of course, already assuming that womans situation is a social matter,20 no matter if women believe that history has or has not confirmed this assumption. However, any revision of womens situation proves that it has been in continuous change. Feminist periodization must have also developed out of what women considered as male disregard of feminist concerns. As Shari Benstock notes, most male-authored histories of modern criticism . . . not only exclude feminist criticism but in a curious way negate it.21 Thus far, feminist periodization bears strong connotations to womens history and feminist history with apparent slight difference. Sawyer and Collier attempt to resolve the confusion and separate the two expressions: whereas womens history is defined by its subject matter, feminist history . . . is designated by its mode of analysis.22 This proposition leads to a narrower view of feminist history that seems dependant on womens history. In The Heidi Chronicles, as well as in her other plays, Wasserstein historicizes each plays present by integrating references from
19 Mark Parker, Measure and Countermeasure: The Lovejoy-Wellek Debate and Romantic periodization, in Theoretical Issues in Literary History, ed. David Perkins (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), 227. 20 Joan Kelly-Gadol, The Social Relation of the Sexes: Methodological Implications of Womens History, in Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism, eds. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2007), 431.

Shari Benstock, Feminist Issues in Literary Scholarship (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1987), 31-2.
21 22 Deborah F. Sawyer and Diane M. Collier, eds. Is There a Future For Feminist Theology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 92.

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contemporary cultural, political, and feminist history.23 Like a historian, Wasserstein rewrites feminist social and cultural histories from a past she had lived and a contemporary present she was then living. Her dramatized histories, though appearing realistic, are only fictional treatments of events, issues, and people she might have met or known. Apart from its treatment of feminist themes and issues, The Heidi Chronicles is structured on divisible time periods that trace feminist existence and challenges. The title itself references historicization and provides several clues for the audience and readers to anticipate sequential eras. Studying the dramatists chronological mapping of the periods from the 1960s to the 1980s, Gail Ciociola writes: What Wasserstein dramatizes in between is the chronicle she wants us to understand: not the fuzzy autobiographical center, but the evolution of Heidis personal crisis within the social arena of feminism.24 Wasserstein re-envisions an era of time that seems more convenient for her to periodize. She retrieves from Heidis life history (i.e., also from her own life), a quarter of a century: from her high school years during the students movement in the mid-1960s, through the beginning of feminism and conscious-raising groups in the 1970s, to the careerism and yuppie life style in the 1980s Reagan years.25 As the action begins, three divisible time phases are set to periodize the feminist condition during definable periods. The following scenes capture, register, and organize the most influential experiences and developments in the heroines life. The dramatists periodization of Heidis life and career reflects an alternative historical register of the feminist scene at those given periods. The Heidi Chronicles is made up of two acts, each beginning with a prologue taking place in the same year, 1989, and in the same location, a lecture hall in New York. The stage directions to the first prologue introduce the heroine, Heidi Holland, an art history professor standing in front of a screen. Slides of paintings are shown as she lectures.26 This opening scene introduces Heidi with her slides and screen, which she uses outwardly as instructional media to aid in explaining her subject matter. The slides and screen are also significant as a device to help her move backward in history to focus on particular moments. Heidi presents several artistic paintings by women artists who had been completely ignored during their lifetime and after their death. As Czekay notes: The prologue to the first
Angelika Czekay, Not Having it All, in The Playwrights Muse. Joan Herrington, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2002), 20.
23 24 25 26

Ibid., 62. Cited in Joan Herrington, The Playwrights Muse, 29.

Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles and Other Plays (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 160. All subsequent references are indicated in parentheses.

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act introduces Heidi as a feminist art historian invested in the excavation of the artists left out of traditional historical accounts. Heidi uses slides... to segue into her own history, establishing the link between the personal and the political.27 However, it would be difficult to highlight this early point in history and move onward because there would be a wide gap in history from that point (i.e., the time of the neglected women artists) to the late 1960s (when Heidi was a school girl). Nevertheless, Heidi uses the slides of feminist paintings from 1559 to 1869 to leap from one period to another. By doing this, she points to the negation of women, and as she moves from one slide to another, Heidi emphasizes the idea of the unvalued and depreciated feminist art no matter how excellent. In her lecture prologue, Heidi addresses her students to focus public attention on these neglected works in order to re-envision and revive them for re-evaluation. Shifting the audiences focus to another time and place, scene one takes place in Chicago and provides the precipitating moment for the entire dramatic action. The timeline serves as an easy reference for the plays periodization by decade: the 1960s and 1970s in Act One, and the 1980s in Act Two. The acts and the prologues implement two periodization strategies: the periodization of the feminist case from 1960s through the 1980s by tracing Heidis life and development, and Heidis periodization of the feminist case during the sixteenth century onward. By means of feminist periodizing structures, aside from the act prologues, the play is divided into three separate phases; the 1960s, the 1970s, and the 1980s. The first phase is manipulated by the first and second scenes of Act One; the second is covered by the three remaining scenes, three, four, and five successively; and the third phase occupies the entire second act being comprised of six scenes. This division is structurally significant. The least number of scenes focus on the farthest and relatively oldest periods in Heidis life and development, while the emphasis shifts as she grows and develops until she reaches the current year, the same year she delivers her lectures and appears in the final scene set in her New York apartment. Heidis introductory lecture is thus a dramatic device through which Wasserstein asserts a significant theme denoting facts about womens conditions and the long history of negation and this is made credible by Heidis professional experience and bolstered by sufficient documentary material and historical paintings. Heidis first slide depicts a portrait by a woman artist named Sofonisba Anguissola, who, as Heidi explains: painted this portrait of her sister, Minerva, in 1559. Not only was Sofonisba a painter with international reputation, but so were her six sisters (160). Showing the next slide, she emphasizes: Heres half the
27

Cited in Joan Herrington, The Playwrights Muse, 30.

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family in Sofonisbas Three Sisters Playing Chess, painted in 1555 (160). In spite of the value and artistic quality of the paintings, Heidi asserts to her students that Sofonisba was ignored: there is no trace of her, or any other woman artist prior to the twentieth century, in your current art history textbook (160). Underscoring the total negation of women artists, Heidi indicates that the standard textbook used in her own college years mentioned no women from the dawn of history to the present (160). In addition to Heidis explicit connotations and ironic discourse used to periodize a history of unfairness and erasure of women and feminism, William Storm notes that Wasserstein [...] . . . initiates the action on the topic of a historically authentic Renaissance woman, introduced here by a woman with her own catholic proclivities. . . . Her commentary provides wittiness and personality in combination with historical allusion; it also introduces the speakers own past (in my day) and, correspondingly the aspect of time set in ratio to ones awareness and appreciation of it.28 Further excavating and re-inserting feminist achievements into the public consciousness, Heidi informs her students that Clara Peeters was the greatest woman artist of the seventeenth century (160). Apart from highlighting the artistic value of Clara Peeterss work, Heidi humorously criticizes the era: Notice here the cylindrical silver canister, the disc of the plate, and the triangular cuts in the cheese. Trust me this is cheese. After breakfast, in fact, Clara went through a prolonged cheese period (161). From Clara Peeters and the satiric reference to her cheese period, Heidi moves to Lily Martin Spencer, another female artist best known by her 1869 We Both Must Fade, a painting which more acutely reflects feminist periodization. Spencers painting shows a melancholic figure described by Heidi as a young woman posing in an exquisitely detailed dress, surrounded by symbolic still-life objects. The fading flower and the clockface are both reminders of mortality and time passing (161). Heidi also establishes a kind of correlation between this artistic figure and real ones despite the distance of time and conditions. She compares her own bafflement and disillusionment during her schooldays to the impressions suggested by this painting:
28 William Storm, Irony and the Modern Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 186.

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This portrait can be perceived as a meditation on the brevity of youth, beauty, and life . . . frankly, this painting has always reminded me of me at one of those horrible high-school dances, and you sort of want to dance, and you sort of want to go home, and you sort of dont know what you want. So you hang around, a fading rose in an exquisitely detailed dress, waiting to see what might happen (161). Indeed, the final comment, which ends the first-act lecture prologue is the impetus for moving from the feminist condition of the young woman in the painting to Heidis own experiences as an adolescent. In both cases, the figure in the painting and Heidis experiences epitomize the feminist condition with all its paradoxes, confusion, ambivalence, the zeal for life, uncertainty, and expectation. One can also infer from Heidis comment that no great change has happened to improve the negative attitudes toward women from those early periods until the mid 1960s. Heidis first prologue lecture ends abruptly but only temporarily because the prologue of Act Two is a complementary part of the same lecture. This structural division is relevant to the overall periodizing process. It seems that Wasserstein intentionally inserted these two prologues before the two acts in order to disrupt the feelings of dissatisfaction of women and reflect her own sense of disconnection. The Heidi Chronicles, Cathleen McGuigan suggests, was created by Wasserstein at a sad and disconnected period of her life.29 Therefore, this structural division separates two eras, which are virtually separated by a long span of time. Nevertheless, it appears that the most impelling feminist issues in all periods, from the early eras periodized in Heidis lectures to the 1980, demonstrate that women still experience inequality in a male-dominant society. Wasserstein divides the prologues and the scenes corresponding with the development of the women characters. The act prologues and their references to the disregarded women artists of the sixteenth century problematically parallel the cases of successful but still dissatisfied women of the twentieth century. At the end of the second prologue, Heidi maintains the sense of perplexity she established earlier as she comments on the figures appearing in another painting: They appear to watch closely and ease the way for the others to join in. I suppose its really not unlike being an art historian. In other words, being neither the painter nor the casual observer, but a highly informed spectator (206). Heidis career success and academic
29

Cited in Gail Ciociola, Wendy Wasserstein: Dramatizing Women, 15.

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achievements are still questionable because these accomplishments do not provide satisfaction. On the contrary, her feelings are blurred with some implicit grievances arising from her bafflement and uncertainty of her role and significance. This ambivalence is ubiquitous throughout the play, but it is especially lucid in the closing scene when she appears alone as a single mother with an adopted baby. Heidi is not satisfied, yet she aspires for prospects of a better future. When Scoop asks if she is happy, she postulates, Well, I have a daughter. And I have never been particularly maternal. . . And shell never think shes worthless unless he lets her have it all. And maybe, just maybe, things will be a little better (246-7). Heidis feminist periodization aligns with an allusion to feminist figures documented in the prologues and who were ignored but are offered new hope through Heidis intervention. In tracking down Heidis history as a feminist case, the play associates the periods of the action with specific locations, adding more evidence and credibility to the feminist sensations related to the characters chronicles. In Act One, for example, Heidi travels back in history to 1965 when she was a school girl. By several implications and reflections, she emphasizes the male-dominant outlook of women as supposedly inferior, helpless, and powerless. As Wasserstein dramatizes Heidis life and experiences, she approximates the original premise for The Heidi Chronicles by re-enacting the contemporary history of the Womens Movement in all her plays, but by providing mere glimpses into its political manifestations, she succeeds only in highlighting a few select milestones.30 In her own way, Wasserstein divides the personal life of her heroine into three definite periods; three decades marking the mental, emotional, and physical development of Heidi who still seems dissatisfied. The first scene of Act One begins with Heidi Holland, in 1965, as a sixteen-year-old girl accompanying her friend Susan to a school dance. Heidi and Susan reflect different attitudes towards self-perception and personal drives; Heidi attends the dance for mere joy and entertainment while Susan attends in search for a man. Viewing a man they describe as cute, Susans unexpected reaction astonishes Heidi: Susan: Look! He can twist and smoke at the same time. I love that! (Susan unbuttons her sweater and pulls a necklace out of her purse.) Heidi: Susie, what are you doing? Susan: Men rely on first impressions. Oh, God, hes incredible! Heidi, move! (162-3)

30

Ibid., 18.

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Susan does not feel at ease with Heidi standing close to her as this will presumably prevent her from attracting her prey. She is also concerned about Heidis finding a man for herself. For this reason, and contradicting the notion of the strength of women as a community, she urges Heidi to move away because the worst thing you can do is cluster. Cause then it looks like you just wanna hang around with your girlfriend (163). Unlike Heidi, Susans ideals and perceptions are very much influenced by the culture of that time and women have no choice but to comply with the prevailing ideas. Therefore, Susan continues her cynical observations and recommends that Heidi should not look desperate. Men dont dance with desperate women (163). The scene dramatically depicts the historical marginalization of women as introduced in the prologues. Susans advice reinforces maledominant ideas: You know, as your best friend, I must tell you frankly that you are going to get really messed up unless you learn to take men seriously (164). Commenting on both girls behavior at the dance, Brewer writes: Heidi appears unusually independent for a teenage girl in the mid1960s, uninterested in being the object of a boys attention if it means leaving her girlfriend alone.31 When Chris approaches Heidi and invites her for a dance, she apologizes saying that she and Susan came to the dance together. The central episode in the plays first structural period focuses on Susan as she leaves Heidi to dance with the young man. In the meantime, Peter approaches Heidi and gradually attracts her by his spiritedness and cynicism: Dont be sorry. I appreciate bored people. Bored, depressed, anxious. These are the qualities I look for in a woman. Your lady friend is dancing with the gentleman who looks like Bobby Kennedy. I find men who smoke and twist at the same time so dreary (165). It does not take long for Peter to win Heidis admiration as they continue their lively conversation and join the dance. Peter proposes to Heidi: Will you marry me? But when Heidi declines, Peter says, I want to know you all my life. If we cant marry, lets be great friends (167). Having shown some sort of affinity with one another, Heidi and Peter close the first scene dancing together. As Heidi and Peter continue their dance and conversation, The Shoop Shoop Song is heard (166), an indication that Wasserstein relies on musical tunes, songs and dances as periodization markers. When asked about the role of music in her plays, particularly with regard to establishing a time period, in an interview with Angelika Czekay, the dramatist replied:
31 Mary F. Brewer, Staging Whiteness (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005), 152.

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There are two things. First of all, the music itself helps me write. So, whatever play I am working on, sometimes when I stop writing I sit and listen to the music, and I find it relaxing. Or Ill drive around with the music on from that time period . . . . Hearing Aretha Franklin sin Respect during The Heidi Chronicles, you know exactly what that is.32 Wassersteins use of music is further noted by Canning as she states: Most of The Heidi Chronicles takes place in the past . . . . These moments are evoked in four ways: popular music (e.g. Shoop Shoop Song or Imagine).33 However, in this early scene, Susan distances herself from Heidi to attract a young man, an indication that women of that period in time experienced an awkward sense of disenfranchisement. The plays feminist register of the 1960s continues in the second scene where Heidi meets Scoop Rosenbaum at another dance arranged as part of Eugene McCarthys run for the democratic nomination in 1968. The stage directions introduce Scoop as intense but charismatic (168). Scoop takes no time to win Heidis attention by his seeming recklessness and impudence. In an extraordinarily cynical manner he uses a lettergrade to evaluate aspects of life as they come to him. Scoop is a selfcongratulatory prig and represents the familiar image of a hyper-macho, aggressive man. In addition to his disparaging views of others, he appears to be proud of his male-oriented precepts and experience. Assuming an air of superiority, he humorously upbraids Heidi for her unwillingness to join in the mating ritual: Scoop Are you guarding the chips? Heidi: No. Scoop: Then youre being very difficult. Heidi: Please, help yourself. Scoop: Where are you going? Heidi: Im trying to listen to the music. Scoop: Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company. A singer. C+ band. Far less innovative than the kinks. You know, you really have one hell of an inferiority complex (168).
32 Angelika Czekay, Interview conducted by Angelika Czekay in February 2001, in The Playwrights Muse, ed. Joan Herrington, 47.

Charlotte Canning, Feminist Perform Their Past: Constructing History in The Heidi Chronicles and The Break of Day, in Women, Theatre and Performance: New Histories, New Historiographies, eds. Maggie B. Gale and Viv Gardner (N.Y.: Manchester University Press, 2000), 167.
33

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Even though Heidi eventually submits to his seductive charm, in a half-defeated feminist tone, she defends herself against Scoops masculine forwardness: Actually, I was wondering what mothers teach their sons that they never bother to tell their daughters (171). Determined to win her affections, Scoop changes his approach. He dodges the issue of gender: Youre a very serious person. In fact, youre the unfortunate contradiction in terms a serious good person. And I envy you that (1723). Scoop persists and pursues Heidi by complimenting her independence and coolness: Maybe Ill remember when Im thirty-five and watching my sons performance . . . Ill look at my wife, who put up with me . . . I could fall in love with Heidi Holland, the canvassing art historian, that first snowy night in Manchester, New Hampshire, 1968 (174). Probably, the most powerful indictment of Scoops stereotypical masculinity in this period can be discerned from the stage directions, which describe Scoop and Heidi at the end of the scene: He begins to leave the room and turns back to Heidi. She looks at her watch and follows him. He clenches his fist in success (174). The ending of the scene epitomizes a vision of the decade of the 1960s by presenting an image of Heidi as she succumbs to the pressures of a male-dominant society. Throughout her structural division of the scenes, Wasserstein highlights the general milestones between 1965 and 1989 that demonstrate Heidis association with the eras causes.34 The remaining three scenes of the first act depict the era extending from 1970 to 1977. Shifting from Heidis high school and the 1960s, the action now takes place in a Church basement in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1970. Two years after Heidis experience with Scoop, the scene focuses a significant development in feminist history referring to the establishment of womens consciousness raising groups. In an ironic twist Susan, who had previously scoffed at the idea of women clustering, joins one of these groups and takes Heidi to one of the meetings. There, they meet Jill, a forty-year-old woman; Fran, who is thirty years old; and Becky, the youngest, who is seventeen and attending for the first time. As the discussion proceeds, Jill unveils how boring her life is since Everybody in my lifemy husband, Bill, my daughters, my friendscould lean on perfect Jill (177), while regretting that she had only forgotten to take care of herself. Unlike Jill, Fran is indignant and exasperated with patriarchal double standards: No. We grow up on fuckin Father Knows Best and we think we have rights! (177). Moreover, she yells at Susan, who tells her about her new position at the Law Review, What are you bullshitting about? Youre going to work
34

Ciociola, Wendy Wasserstein, Dramatizing Women, 57.

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from within the male-establishment power base (178). Again, the play articulates the prevailing feminist thought and enunciates entrenched central tenet of feminist belief. Fran explains: Heidi, every woman in this room has been taught that the desires and dreams of her husband, her son, or her boss are much more important than her own (181). Nevertheless, Fran is unyielding in her quest for equal rights and treatment. She argues: the only way to turn that around is for us, right here, to try to make what we want, what we desire to be, as vital as it would undoubtedly be to any man. And then we can go out there and really make a difference (181). Of all the women, Fran is the strongest, most stubborn, and most determined, as she takes a stand in the battle of the sexes: Maybe I should dress for combat more often (177). Despite the remarkable feminist activism and fervor propelled by such consciousness-raising groups, the play proposes the notion that womens conditions had not improved significantly in the 1970. Judging from Wassersteins dramaturgical representations, women remained subservient to men as reflected by Beckys complaint about the negative treatment she receives from her boyfriend: I try to be super nice with him. I make all his meals, and I never disagree with him. But then he just gets angry or stoned (179). Her boyfriends disrespectfulness has a negative impact on Becky as she adds, when I need to think things through, I lock the bathroom door and cry. But I try not to make any sound (179). Heidis experience with Scoop has similarly caused her dejection, a dreary feeling that would last until the end of the play. The problem in Heidis case is that she has been strongly committed to this odd relationship with Scoop, as Susan notes: The point is that Heidi will drop anythingwork, a date, even a chance to see mejust to be around this creep (181). Heidi does not refute Susans description of Scoop as a creep, yet she cannot easily rid herself of him because hes a charismatic creep (181). Being fully aware of the nature and development of her relationship with Scoop, Heidi confesses that Scoop is not to blame and that she could have chosen better. Heidi appears incapable of resisting his charisma and admits to allowing this guy to account for so much of what I think of myself. I allow him to make me feel valuable. And the bottom line is, I know thats wrong (182). As she ends her periodization of the 1970s, Wasserstein presents two contradictory attitudes toward feminism: first, there was a growing awareness of feminist demands for improved status; and second, these consciousness-raising groups did not improve the feminist condition. The shared feelings among the women in this scene are confusion, irresolution, the sense of an immeasurable gap between what they want

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and what their society tells them they can get.35 Of course, this feeling urges Heidi to aspire for a more prosperous future for younger generations: Becky, I hope our daughters never feel like us. I hope all our daughters feel so fucking worthwhile. Do you promise we can accomplish that much, Fran? (182). In a general comment on this scene, Czekay writes: [g]iven the scenes general tone, the meetings actual conversations allude only tangentially to the important historical function of consciousness raising in this early phase of radical and liberal feminism.36 The subsequent scene focuses on the period of the mid-1970s, specifically 1974, and takes place outside the Chicago Art Institute. A slight change has occurred in Heidis character. She appears leading a protest against the Institute because the show of Napoleonic art does not include female artists. Speaking into a bullhorn, Heidi proclaims reprehensible facts and statistics: This museum is publicly funded by our tax dollars. Our means both men and women. The weekly attendance at this institution is sixty percent female. The painting and appreciation classes are seventy percent female (184). Shamefully, only two female artists are included, and in the current event, The Age of Napoleon. Despite her enthusiasm, Heidi fails to draw many supporters even when her friend Debbie takes the bullhorn and tries all over again; evidence of even more negation. In the subsequent structural division, the last scene of Act One traces the development in Heidis life in 1977. Accompanied by Peter, she attends the wedding of Scoop and Lisa while Susan has already arrived on the scene with Molly, a twenty-six-year old woman. Heidi justifies her decision to attend the wedding, telling Scoop: Peter wanted to meet you. Thats why we came. He said if I witnessed your ritual, it would put an end to an era (200). Peter mocks Scoop and Lisa in a histrionic speech spoofing what Scoop may say in his marriage ritual: Peter: Do you, Scoop Rosenbaum, take Lisa Friedlander to be your bride? Well, I feel ambivalent about her. But I am blocked emotionally, and she went to good schools, comes from a very good family, and is not particularly threatening. So, yeah, I do. Anyway, its time for me to get married. (193) Imitating Lisas Southern accent, Peter resumes, Rabbi, ever since I was a little girl I have been wanting to matriculate with an M.R.S.
35 Richard Gray, A Brief History of American Literature (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 323 36

Cited in Joan Herrington, The Playwrights Muse, 30.

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degree. I idolize Scoop because he is as brilliant and rich as my daddy, whom I also idolize . . . . So, yes, Rabbi, I do take Scoop (193). Peters assumption that Lisa agrees to marry Scoop partially to obtain an M. R. S. degree is a reference to the prevalent cultural belief about young women during the 1950s.37 This scene covering the period of the late 1970s is important for Heidi and Scoop to recount how they reached this point. Scoop admits that he is not pleased with his marriage to Lisa, as he sighs in mock despair: Oh, God, Im so unhappy! and further questions Heidi: Why did you let me do this? (198). Although hurt, Heidi calmly explains she is now seeing someone. Sort of living with someone (198). Nevertheless, before the scene ends, Scoop clarifies his relationship with Heidi. He indicates that he could not deceive Heidi any longer because he wanted to marry a woman who would not be a competitor in his own success: Lets say we married and I asked you to devote the, say, next ten years of your life to me. To making me a home, a family and a life so secure that I could with some confidence go out into the world each day and attempt to get an A. Youd say, No. Youd say, Why cant we be partners? Why cant we both go out into the world and get an A? And youd be absolutely valid and correct. (201) Commenting on Scoops motives and choice to ignore Heidi and marry another, Boone and Cadden write: Although still in love with A+ Heidi, Scoop marries a more accommodating woman (a secure 6 on his 10-point rating scale). . . . Unlike Peter, Scoop is threatened by Heidis independence and her desire to fulfill her potential. He is threatened by her feminismand not her humanism.38 Scoop is certain that Heidi
Sitkoff discusses this issue stating that Popular culture in the 1950s glorified marriage and parenthood, emphasizing a womans role as a helpmate to her husband and a full-time mother to her children. As Hollywood actress Debbie Reynolds declared in The Tender Trap (1955), A woman isnt a woman until shes been married and had children.... Education reinforced these notions...Guidance counselors cautioned young women not to miss the boat of marriage by pursuing higher education. Men are not interested in college degrees but in the warmth and humanness of the girls they marry, stressed a textbook on the family. More men than women went to college, and only one-third of college women completed a degree. They dropped out, women joked, to get their M. R. S. degree or a Ph.T.Putting Hubbie Through. For more details, see: Harvard Sitkoff et al, The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 845.
37 38 Joseph A. Boone and Michael Cadden, eds. Engendering Men: The Question of Male Feminist Criticism (New York: Routledge, 2012), 285.

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would not submit to his patriarchal thoughts and desires as Lisa might. Even though he managed to win her heart at their first meeting, he understands that Heidi has other interests such as: Self-fulfillment. Selfdetermination. Self-exaggeration (201), and this would make their life together impossible, as he tells Heidi: Then youd be competing with me (201). Therefore, he chooses to marry Lisa while still in love with Heidi, who is also unable to stop loving him. As they talk before the scene ends, Scoop and Heidi are gradually influenced by their strong love and memories. Scoop holds her tightly and promises: I love you, Heidi. Ill always love you (203). The lights fade as they dance and sing together, and Act One concludes the period of the 1960s and the 1970s and the feminist condition has not significantly improved for Heidi. In spite of the formation of feminist consciousness-raising groups and the development of womens awareness of equal rights and treatment, the end of the decade for Heidi is marked by Scoops decision to marry a woman who will labor only at home for his success and without any commitment or liabilities on his side. Moving forward in time, Act Two is divided into six successive scenes occurring chronologically in 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, and 1989. The structural division of the scenes and the episodic development are significant. First, unlike Act One, which covers two decades in five scenes, the six scenes of the second act are devoted to a single decade, an indication of the momentousness of this period in Heidis life. Second, the act inserts a two-year interval between each scene, except for the fifth scene, which takes place after only one year and transforms the order from even-number into odd-number years. This act, as Czekay notes, explores the 1980s as a decade of individualism, ambitiousness, careerism, and materialism, which, as the play suggests, is a historical consequence of the preceding me decade. In particular, the act explores different variations of women who are trying to have it all.39 The first scene takes place in Scoops and Lisas apartment. Susan and Heidi are visiting Lisa, who is now very pregnant (206). In addition, two other women join them: Betsy, a pregnant woman aged thirty-five, and Denise, Lisas sister, twenty-six. Even his absence indicates Scoops male superiority. He has lied to his wife, stating that he had to go to Princeton for one of those looking forward to the eighties, looking back on the seventies panels (210). Ironically, Betsy, Denise, and Heidi know that Scoop is seeing another woman, but they are not certain if Lisa knows. The scene ends cheerfully as the women toast and play the music. The scene powerfully demonstrates Scoops sustained confidence
39

Cited in Herrington, The Playwrights Muse, 31.

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and readiness to cheat women even after marriage. Heidis professional advancement is marked by the news of her new book. Resuming the periodization of the plot development, the play schematically moves through the 1980s. The entire scene presumably comes from Heidis memory. Onstage, there is a TV studio attendant calling light cues(214), in preparation for a program hosting a group drawn from the boomer generation. Scoop tells Peter that it was Denise who arranged for this TV program to have them all on the show together (215), and Denise tells the group that April will have them discuss topics such as: the sixties, social conscience, relationships, Reaganomics, money, careers, approaching the big 4-0; Scoop: opinions, trends; Heidi: women in art, the death of ERA, your book; Peter: the new medicine, kids today (215). In her seemingly popular show, Hello, New York, April understands that she is hosting a number of guests who all belong to this period, of the baby boom generation, the kids who grew up in the fifties, protested in the sixties, were the mes of the seventies, and the parents of the eighties (216). Peter and Scoop take up most of the air-time to express their vision of the era. Even though Scoop assumes at first that they are an idealistic generation, Peter contends their generation is distinguished from the previous generation by their belief that any individual has a right to pursue his or her particular life-style(218). Again, Scoop gives a more detailed description of the 1980s boom generation: were serious people with a sense of humor. Were not young professionals, and were not old lefties or righties. Were unique. Were powerful, but not bullies. Were rich, but not ostentatious. Were parents, but not parental. And I think we had the left magazine in college, we had the music magazines in the seventies, and now we deserve what I call a power magazine in the eighties. Were opinion-and trend-setters, and I hope Boomer is our chronicle. (219) Emphasizing the significance of the boomer generation and the synchronous cultural and socio-political conditions, Jan Balakian explains: Daniel Yankelovich divides the Boomers into two categories: the first comprises those born from 1946 to 1954, whose memorable events were the assassination of JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King; political unrest, and the later Boomers generation, Balakian adds, born from 1955 to 1964, have a different set of memorable events: Watergate, Nixons resignation, the Cold War, the oil embargo, raging inflation, gasoline shortages. . . . The characters in The Heidi Chronicles have a foot in

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each group.40 Scene three takes place in 1984 and shows that the conditions of women have not improved. Susan and her friends are still complaining about men. Susan broke up with her boyfriend because, she tells Heidi, hes still married, and he doesnt want to start another family . . . . I tell you Heidi, its rough. Every other woman I know is either pregnant or just miscarried (223). This justifies Heidis own decision: Im planning to start my family at sixty(223). Having been raised with much enthusiasm, their fundamental feminist issues have not achieved any satisfactory aspirations, as Susan explains in a bitter, cynical, and realistic mode: Heidi, you and I are people who need to commit. Im not political anymore. I mean, equal rights is one thing, equal pay is one thing, but blaming everything on being a woman is just pass (226). Denise believes that the problem is only a problem of their own generation, as she tells Susan and Heidi, like a lot of women your age are very unhappy. Unfulfilled, frightened of growing old alone (226). She continues and compares their generation to much younger generations: Our girls have a plan. They want to get married at their twenties, have their first baby by thirty and make a pot of money (226). However, the scene ends poignantly as Susan waves goodbye to Heidi in the same way she did two decades earlier when they were in high school. Continuing the structural division to periodize the decade of the 1980s, the next scene occurs at the Plaza Hotel in 1986. In this scene, Sandra Zucker-Hall, president of Miss Crains School East Coast Alumnae Association introduces Dr. Heidi Holland, a distinguished alumna of this school in 1965, to give a speech. Structurally, this high-school luncheon is significant. Primarily, it propels Heidis projections and awareness of two periods: 1960s with memories of her high school days, and the mid-1980s with her present achievements as a distinguished guest representing the schools alumnae. Of no less importance is the topic, Women Where Are We Going, which is selected for Heidi to ponder based on her feminist experience and achievements. Her topic, according to Hart and Phelan, is Women, Where Are We Going? Nowhere is her answer. She sums up the history of the feminist movement in an ironic acrobatic class locker room scene, in which she finds herself alienated from, envious of, and superior to the young women.41 Heidis lecture communicates her negative views to a younger generation of women for a comprehensive assessment. In Heidis lecture, there is nothing exemplary except for the
40 41

Balakian, Reading the Plays of Wendy Wasserstein, 97.

Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan, eds. Acting Out: Feminist Performances (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2005), 2-3.

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way she addresses the young women. Heidi does not have any organized or prepared material to discuss: I appear before you today with no formal speech, I have no outline, no pink note cards, no hieroglyphics scribbled on my palm. Nothing (228). Starting this womens meeting, Heidi tells the young women that they might forgive her not preparing a speech and attribute it to a regular busy-day schedule. Indeed, Heidi may feel ambivalent, but there is a glimpse of melancholy in her tone as she surmises what these young women may think of her: After teaching at Columbia yesterday, Miss Holland probably attended a low-impact aerobics class . . . picked up her children from school, took the older one to drawing-with-computers at the Metropolitan, and the younger one to swimming-for-gifted-children (228). Heidis regretful tone as she expresses her speculations of being a mother of two intelligent kids reinforces her maternal instinct. It does not, however, diminish her role as a strong woman who did not marry the one she loved. Instead, she has succeeded as a reputable college professor. Heidi pursues her speculations of what the young women might have thought would detain her from preparing an organized speech (or she herself has been yearning for): On returning home, she immediately prepared grilled mesquite free-range chicken with balsamic vinegar and sun-dried tomatoes, advised her investment-banker well-rounded husband on future finances . . . put the children to bed, recited their favorite Greek myths . . . finished writing ten pages of a new book, took the remains of the mesquite free-range dinner to a church that feeds the homeless . . . after all this, we forgive Miss Holland for not preparing a speech today (228-9). Heidi assures her audience that all these activities were only illusory and that her actual activities of the preceding day included meeting and talking with women in the locker room. As Ciociola notes, Heidi makes it clear that she feels left out by the women in the locker room. . . . In truth, she barely masks her condescension.42 Likewise, Dolan states that Wassersteins play narrates the uncomplimentary view of the feminist movement promoted by the dominant culture,43 and adds that Heidi, alone at the end of the play, wonders what the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s were all for and wonders still what she and other
42 43

Ciociola, Wendy Wasserstein: Dramatizing Women, 74.

Jill Dolan, Presence and Desire: Essays on Gender, Sexuality, Performance (Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2002), 51.

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women want.44 Heidis alumni luncheon is so important that Balakian considers it the climax of the play, and that she [Heidi] delivers a long, impromptu confession concerning her feelings of abandonment and her disappointment with her peers.45 In her speech, Snodgrass comments, Hollands heart interrupts her brain, causing her to lose her grasp on perky self-confidence.46 Nevertheless, she does not attempt to hide her dissatisfaction as she recalls the pathetic feeling she felt in her conversation with one of the women in the locker room: No, Jeanette. Im just not happy. Im afraid I havent been happy for some time (232). The ideas and reflections of the luncheon lecture aroused much of the negative feminist criticism as the play exposes the marginalization of women artists, sexism in general, womens loss of identity, an unromantic view of marriage, and lost idealism of the second wave of feminism that began in the early sixties.47 According to Demastes, Wasserstein should certainly not be banished from the ranks for exposing the pitfalls of the 1960s and 70s feminism; feminists themselves have recognized the limitations of the liberal goal of individualist equality.48 The scene concludes with Heidis lecture ending with a desperate tone: I dont blame any of us. Were all concerned, intelligent, good women. Pauses. Its just that I feel stranded. And I thought the whole point was that we wouldnt feel stranded. I thought the point was that we were all in this together (232). Scene five is set in 1987 at a Childrens ward in a New York hospital. From the stage directions, the time is evident from a late-night movie on the TV. The entire midnight scene is structured to have Heidi and Peter recall the past twenty five years and express their respect for one another. Eventually, the intensity of the scene arises from their confused emotions as she tells him about her intention to leave for Northfield, Minnesota the following day: Heidi: Peter, I came to say good-bye. Peter: Good-bye.
44

Ibid., 53.

Jan Balakian, Wendy Wasserstein: a Feminist Voice From the Seventies to the Present, in The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights, ed. Brenda Murphy (N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 220.
45 46 Mary Ellen Snodgrass, Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature (New York: Infobase Publ., 2009), 256. 47 48

Balakian, Reading the Plays of Wendy Wasserstein, 82.

William W. Demastes, Realism and the American Dramatic Tradition (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1996), 209.

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Heidi: Thats it. Peter: What do you want me to say? Heidi: I dont know. Youll call me? Peter: Ill call you. Heidi, what do you want me to say? You are a brave and remarkable woman. A proud pioneer. My Antonia driving ever forward through the unknown. Heidi, softly: Peter, sweetie, what is it? Peter, moves away: Nothing . . . So youre going to Northfield, Minnesota, to start again. Good-bye, New York. Good-bye, mistakes. Make new friends. Give donations to the old. Heidi: I hate it when youre like this (235). The scene ends in an exquisite moment as Heidi reminds Peter of his early statement: I want to know you all my life. If we cant marry, lets be great friends (239). Despite her power to control her nerves and relations with others, in addition to her outstanding academic success, Heidi feels broken-hearted being abandoned by the most important men in her life: Scoop, by his emotional vacuity and negligence, and Peter, by his homosexuality. Although Peter, as Balakian notes, may be Heidis soul mate, he is unattainable. . . . Peter and Heidi enact their own melodrama, pretending they are star-crossed lovers on a Queen Mary cruise . . . and Peter and Heidi never kiss.49 However, at the end of the scene, they embrace and wish one another Merry Christmas. To sustain the periodization of the 1980s, the play ends at Heidis new apartment in New York in 1989. Contrary to her intention to go to Northfield, Minnesota in the previous scene, Heidi still lives in New York where she teaches at Columbia. The scene is a culmination of Heidis ultimate endurance and determination to secure a better social position. In addition to her academic career and growing reputation as a writer, Heidi seems to have achieved sufficient emotional growth to confront the arrogant Scoop, who reappears in this final scene (i.e. Scoop is now father of two children; Maggie and Pierre). With his customary histrionics, Scoop attempts to show his genuine interest in Heidi: I made a list the other day of the people I care about. And you made the top ten. In fact, I reworked the list a few times, and you were the only one who made the top ten through three decades (241). Heidi is not deceived by Scoop and will not help him in cheating on his wife. The scene approaches its end as Scoop recognizes that his efforts will never win Heidis heart or retrieve the old days. He tells Heidi that he learned from Susan about the baby she adopted and asks her the babys name. Heidi calls the baby Judy whom
49

Balakian, Reading the Plays of Wendy Wasserstein, 83.

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she describes, as she lifts her up to show her to Scoop, A heroine for the twenty first! (248). In its periodization of the 1980s, the play emphasizes the difference between historical feminism and realism. Holland happily immerses herself in the creative fireworks of centuries past. Replicating them in her own life becomes downright scary. She confesses to feeling stranded.50 In the play, Wasserstein uses specific historical points and stops not only to follow the development of her heroines life history but also to implement a clear structural division of the scenes. As Brook indicates, Generational periodizing is always problematic, of course, given that historical generations themselves discursive constructions overlap messily rather than stop or start at specific points. Indeed, part of the reason Jan Lewis chose Wendy Wasserstein as a prime focus for her analysis of post-modern American Jewish theater is that Wassersteins work spans and straddles generations.51 To periodize the entire action of The Heidi Chronicles, Wasserstein manages to draw a true generational picture in a very schematic method and successive historical development making it possible to follow the action and trace whatever happens to the heroine from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1980s. In addition to the divisible time structures of the scene, Wasserstein has made good use of music and dances throughout the play. From her first scene she employs music and dances to evoke memories of those specific periods of time and inspire a nostalgic recognition on the part of audience members who experienced personally (or have close ties to those who do) who lived through the events that Wasserstein depicts.52 Regarding Wassersteins use of specific musical tunes as a device that aids in recalling certain eras in history, Furnish notes that the music and the songs used in Wassersteins play conjure whatever personal associations audience members may have with those songs individually.53 Besides, these tunes can be also regarded as periodizing markers, as Furnish adds:
50 51

Snodgrass, 256.

Vincent Brook, ed. You should See Yourself: Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2006), 55-6.
52 Ben Furnish, Nostalgia in Jewish-American Theatre and Film: 1979 2004 (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2005), 97. 53

Ibid.

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As a device, the music further serves to establish the time period of its scenes and move forward the plays action. For example, the shift from the 1960s Shoop-Shoop song at a school dance to Aretha Franklins R-E-S-P-E-C-T as background music to an early 1970s womens conscious-raising meeting serves as an unmistakable shorthand for how the womens movement had entered the American cultural scene.54 Along with Furnish, Dolan analyzes Wassersteins use of music, particularly the Shoop-Shoop song of the first scene, noting that this song is period appropriate and inspires a jolt of recognition that conjures up a sentimental nostalgia, rather than a more thoughtful consideration of the history the music recalls.55 Moving from the 1960s to the 1970s, Wasserstein continues to use music for the same purpose. She opens scene three of the first act with the consciousness raising group playing Aretha Franklins Respect, and Fran dancing and singing Sock it to me, Sock it to me (175). Shortly before the scene ends, the group plays another song, but soon Fran breaks out of the circle (183) and plays Aretha Franklins song. Commenting on this scene, Gail Ciociola writes: Switching from campfire songs to more contemporary music, they end the scene laughing together and dancing to Aretha Franklins Respect, thereby re-creating the euphoric spirit of the time.56 Truly, the music and the songs in The Heidi Chronicles are time definers and indicative of the multiple experiences of the women. Of the several musical tunes used in the play, at the end of the last scene of the first act, newly wedded Scoop and Lisa request to have their favorite song, You Send Me, played. Ironically, the music proves that Heidi and Scoop still love one another so passionately that they appear momentarily oblivious of Scoop and Lisas wedding. As the song is heard, Heidi sits down and begins to cry silently. Scoop reenters the room and they look at each other . . . . They simultaneously move toward each other and kiss. They are suddenly slow-dancing (203). Periodizing as it is, the song at the end of the scene concludes a memorable stage in Heidis life. Likewise, when Susan suggests to change Imagine, which is played and enjoyed by Betsy in the first scene of the second act, Lisa and Susan mention other songs such as: Rocky Raccoon, Its Been a Hard Days Night, and Here Comes the Sun. Both women indicate that these songs are memorable as they remind them of their own significant experiences.
54 55 56

Ibid. Jill Dolan, Presence and Desire, 51. Ciociola, Wendy Wasserstein, Dramatizing Women, 66.

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In conclusion, apart from its powerful political indictment and treatment of feminist issues through comedy, Wassersteins The Heidi Chronicles makes good use of periodization as a structural component of the setting and scene divisions. Relying on such a device, the dramatist manages to register the growth and development of the female protagonist, and to draw a schematic feminist chronology of three generations in feminist history. From scene to scene, the play manages to shift and focus a kaleidoscope on a specific period of time to highlight the significant development in the heroines life that parallels feminist history. In her structural division of the scenes, Wasserstein follows a clear and straight forward schema to frame the entire action from the protagonists school days in 1965 to her professional and personal apex in 1989. As the action proceeds, she uses two- to three-year time intervals to separate the successive development of the action. The only exception that adds a slight complexity and interrupts the flow of the structural development is the insertion of the two prologues to the two acts. Additionally, Wasserstein has employed a number of musical tunes, songs, and dances, which characterize specific periods in time and serve as setting devices to recall memories and experiences which the audience and characters might have or have not had in their lives.