Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2005/08/26/not_your_mothers_heidi.php
Friday, August 26, 2005
'Heidi' had always brought to mind a blonde, rosy, six-year-old who enjoyed running through the Alps. (It was also what my crazy great aunt insisted upon calling me during my formative years, though I am neither blonde, Swiss, or particularly rosy. But that is neither here nor there.) Unfortunately, these charming connotations disappeared—I fear permanently—as the curtain went up on Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles.
Into their place stepped Heidi Holland, as rendered by Hannah Chodos. Close your eyes and imagine with me that the really irritating girl from your history class has become a good deal older, grayer, and self-assured. As seems fitting, she is lecturing an auditorium of Columbia undergraduates on the overlooked female artist, and you get the pleasure of sitting in. As the art slides disappear from sight and the lights go up, Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie peeps at you from the backdrop, Margaret Thatcher pops in from the left, and Mother Teresa floats indistinctly above a photo of a 'Gay is Good, Gay is Proud' banner. As I followed Heidi Holland/Chodos through three decades of painful struggles, and even more painful speeches, to her ultimate resting place as an unhappy, unfulfilled, dour-academic-turned-adoptive-mother, I found myself wondering what sort of lifestyle Wasserstein was in fact endorsing. I shuddered inside at the comparisons I found myself making as my wandered to a certain lobster-loving Dartmouth English professatrix (see TDR 3/5/04).
Returning to the play, we early on meet the two men who will have an impact on Heidi's story. The banter that characterizes these relationships continues throughout the duration of the play, making one feel that Heidi was never able to escape the modes of her earliest, nearly platonic love affairs. We are first introduced to Peter Patrone (Jacob Crumbine), a well-spoken young gent at Heidi's high school dance who ultimately decides to pursue a Vassar education and becomes the 'best' pediatrician in New York City. As one might expect, Peter confesses midway through the play that he doesn't 'play' for the usual team, but instead for the one that includes Stanley Zink.
Heidi's other love interest, Scoop Rosenbaum (Gordon Gray), is first introduced at a 1968 Eugene McCarthy rally, clutching a crackpot paper call the Liberated Earth News (which the prop manager has fittingly represented with a copy of Dartmouth's liberal rag). This connection is just as blighted as the first, and while Scoop—who is crass, witty, and oddly reminiscent of John Goodman—keeps Heidi on his rotation of willing ladies for several years, he ultimately settles on a domestic and motherly creator of children's books.
The only female in the play who is able to emerge unscathed and untouched by shades of militancy is portrayed as a silly, flighty, 'walking womb' who doesn't know how to seek 'empowerment.' Oddly enough, Debbie's (Margot Hurley) homeliness came off as far more genuine and complete than all of the liberating monologues of the play combined, in spite of Wasserstein's best attempts to make the character look and act the fool.
Other than, well, the script, I quite enjoyed the play. In fact, I found it difficult to object to anything that Dartmouth contributed to the spectacle presented before me. The set was minimalist, to be sure, but functional and extremely well done. It was supplemented with digital projector images, which introduced the time and place of each scene. My one wish was that they would have left Mother Teresa out of the scenery, but I was comforted by the knowledge that they weren't doing anything that Cher hadn't already tried on tour. The set changes were executed with speed, precision, and splotches of classic rock, not to mention high-energy dance moves.
Acting and costumes alike added a great deal of humor to the dated spectacle. There was a faint, but ever-present, sense that most of the actors were aware of the ridiculousness of the speeches they uttered and the clothing they wore. And during an especially disgusting Ya Ya Sisterhood-like dance sequence in the third scene, I witnessed many self-conscious laughs and smiles that certainly weren't scripted. The authentic, and oh-so-repulsive bell bottoms, shoulder-padded 80s blazers, and hippie-wear that covered the cast provided haunting reminders of fashion blunders past.
Unfortunately, unlike the vestments, there was nothing tongue-in-cheek about the arc of Heidi's development over the course of the play. Chodos seemed to have absorbed the protagonist in all her self-righteous, obnoxious splendor. While her performance was flawless and convincing—in that it undoubtedly delivered what Wasserstein envisaged—the result was more than a bit disquieting.