The Heidi Chronicles | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 2 pages of analysis & critique of The Heidi Chronicles.

The Heidi Chronicles | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 2 pages of analysis & critique of The Heidi Chronicles.
This section contains 468 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Review by Graydon Carter

SOURCE: "East Side Stories," in Vogue, Vol. 179, No. 3, March, 1989, p. 266B.

In the following unfavorable review, Carter characterizes The Heidi Chronicles, as "Off-Broadway lite" and reminiscent of television sitcoms.

Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles and Richard Greenberg's Eastern Standard are both comedic attempts to humanize the anxieties and dreams of bloodless yuppie existence. Drenched in soppy good intention, both plays have moved from venturesome Off Broadway, where they didn't really belong, to the commercial houses of Broadway, where they do…. In The Heidi Chronicles [Wasserstein] exhumes an old but promising device—picking up the lives of characters at dramatic junctures over a prolonged period—only to cruelly effect a sort of dramatic euthanasia on it. Central to this theme are the character and career of Heidi Holland, played by Joan Allen.

Heidi's life is sketched out in eleven vignettes over the course of some twenty-three years. Along the...

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This section contains 468 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Review by Graydon Carter
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Critical Review by Graydon Carter from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.