THE HEIDI CHRONICLES Previews

Previews start tonight! Who's going?

Very curious to hear how the play lands in 2015. So many of the archetypical issues in the shorthanded, mostly comic scenes, have been recycled since (sitcom, romcom films, other plays) it will be fascinating to hear how the first exploration all works now. The tone isn't entirely consistent, with some satire blending necessarily with earnest drama. I saw three Heidi's, including Joan Allen, my favorite still Mary McDonnell, the most emotional and fullest. I still believe the male roles are devilishly difficult to get right, another open question about the revival.

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Updated On: 2/23/15 at 11:50 PM

I went last night. It's a strong production, with a superb cast. There are no weak links, but there is one obvious star turn: Bryce Pinkham as Peter. Think awards.

Despite people tripping over themselves on this board to say how "dated" the play was going to be, it feels as fresh, alive, and necessary as if it was written yesterday.

I was there last night, and having seen Patricia Arquette's Oscar speech the night before I thought the play was an interesting examination of have far we have come and how far we have to go. I didn't feel that the material was particularly dated, we are still having the conversation of "can women have it all?" "YOUR generation did that vs. OUR generation does this."

I think the direction is really wonderful providing the audience that didn't live through this time period with little flashes of pop-culture and news to give us a time and place, the ensemble is connected and full, and Elisabeth Moss handles the transformation of Heidi through the decades effortlessly.

Great night out and fantastic first preview.

This is one of my favorite modern plays and I'm very glad to hear it's in such good shape- especially Bryce Pinkham. That role is the highlight of the play for me.

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These reports have certainly put to rest (for me) the idea that the play simply doesn't work as it did, sociopolitically and dramatically. I suppose in the era of "mansplaining" the central relationship between Heidi and Scoop has an interesting resonance, since he is both deeply invested in this woman and patronizing as hell at times, right up to the end, a strength of Wassterstein's storytelling. I suspect that aspect hasn't dated the play, as one might've suspected projecting ahead in '88 to '15. Just my passing thought.

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Great to hear such positive feedback, it will be my first time seeing it and I am really looking forward to it.

As always thanks for your post WhizzerMarvin TrinaJasonMendel and the others, as well.

Nice to hear all these reports so far. Did anyone else see it yesterday?

Thank you for that review, Whizzer. I was curious to read how Moss' performance compared to her somewhat polarizing turn in SPEED-THE-PLOW. I think she is absolutely divine on TV and film (just this past year she delivered a fantastic turn in the little-seen THE ONE I LOVE), so I am happy to hear she is handling herself so capably on stage in a role that I imagine is more difficult to play than some people assume. I've taught this play within the past couple of years and I am in the camp of people who find its take on feminism a bit dated (I prefer the sharpness of something like TOP GIRLS much more), but as the recent A RAISIN IN THE SUN revival proved, there is nothing like a great director to make you rediscover a play you had dismissed as "dated." Glad McKinnon is it for THE HEIDI CHRONICLES. I really hope I can get to see this.

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Interesting to read the less favorable reactions. On the other board, someone commented that an MFA playwriting professor had said HEIDI is Exhibit A in what NOT to do in a contemporary play. I can't fathom anyone ever making such a blanket (and subjective) statement about a successful piece of writing and its impact, but nevertheless, if it's being held up by anyone as having a craft problem it's worth considering in light of those who are not engaged.

The play's reliance on the cavalcade motif, the sweep of time and merely playing catch-up with characters in new eras can feel tension-free. We can feel the absence of emotional suspense, which every play needs to drive us toward catharsis. Heidi's 11 o'clock spot aria of feeling stranded, the most famous speech in the play, suddenly takes the story, such as it is, far deeper; in effect, it reveals the grand design of the play's thesis. But it might be argued that Wassterstein doesn't set up the "problem" of the play that must be solved. Heidi has much to say, but sometimes she's lost in that epic sweep. She doesn't always drive the action but instead reacts, and annotates. There's where that tension ebbs and the stakes are not always apparent.

I'm not personally nitpicking here, just aiming to get under the comments of "boring" and sleep-inducing. Often those reactions accompany storytelling that doesn't feel built on those stated or dramatized stakes. I recall feeling the play literally lurch forward during the locker room speech, and perhaps even appreciate all that came before in a new light. Admittedly it's quite late. But if the play's heart and head are in the right place, its craft depends on creating a theatrical collage rather than setting a character in search of a strong, identifiable goal, perhaps the result more muted and less persuasive than some plays.

For what it's worth, the play had its detractors in the 80s. I can recall a particularly intense discussion about it one night at a restaurant, with someone connected to the original production who (unfairly) felt forced to defend it. Some people felt it a rarefied portrait of an elitist/privileged white upper middle class woman's plight Lite (surely, post Arquette's backstage speech, part of the discussion in 2015). Per comments above, people sometimes felt there just wasn't sufficient (traditional) story.

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Updated On: 2/27/15 at 07:01 AM

I personally loved the format of the piece. It was like a chronologic mosaic that built up to the payoff of her big speech. It made me think of Boyhood in many ways and this could be the Womanhood version.

I agree that Pinkham lit up the stage, but one of my favorite scenes- Susan's group meeting that Heidi attends in college- had neither male lead in it, and I found it fascinating.

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I'm seeing this next week and i can't wait!

I was so enjoying reading the above discussion of the play-- it inspired me to stop by the TKTS booth tonight and grab a seat-- 5th row center section on the aisle.

I remember being very moved by the original Broadway production with Joan Allen and its evocative set by Tom Lynch. Now I'm scratching my head wondering what on earth I found so moving back in 1989. Elizabeth Moss and especially Bryce Pinkham are both superb in the new cast, but I'm at a loss as to what happened to the script in the intervening 25 years. It just seems like a travelogue in a VH-1-style Behind-the-Music mode, with every other sentence littered with awkward references to the pop singers, political scandals and buzz words of the year at hand. Cartoony stereotypes of lesbian anarchists, Southern Belles and A-type career girls crowd Heidi away from center stage in scene after scene. By the time Heidi gets to her big moment halfway through Act II, the only thing that comes across the footlights is how frustrated she is to have to choose a path based on one of those pathetic archetypes. God knows the cliche-ridden costumes don't help, nor the utterly UN-evocative set designs of the usually brilliant John Lee Beatty. If John Lee can't even find the poetry that's supposed to be onstage, than we're really in trouble. Oy.