In this mixed review of The Heidi Chronicles, Weales praises the performances but complains that the play "has no dramatic center" in its title character. He criticizes Wasserstein for providing a protagonist who is little more than a foil for the supporting characters.

Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles began as a workshop production at the Seattle Repertory Theatre; then, shepher ded by the Seattle Rep's Daniel Sullivan, it moved to a well-received off-Broadway debut and then to Broadway; it has now been blessed by the Pulitzer Prize committee. It is a typical American-theater success story of the 1980s, but I have trouble working up much enthusiasm for its triumphant journey.

The Heidi of the title is an art historian, a presumably intelligent and sensitive woman who moves from 1965 to 1989, picking her way through the ideational thickets of those years, only to find that the goal of her...