Discussion Topics: The Heidi Chronicles

I. Discussion Topics

1. Many critics argue that the play fails to show a feminist theme. Some of you might agree on their argument and others not. What is your opinion? Explain why. 

II. The Heidi Chronicles: Story and Commentary

The Heidi Chronicles a play about a woman. The play is comprised of a series of interrelated scenes that trace the coming of age of Heidi Holland, a successful art historian, as she tries to find her bearings in a rapidly changing world. She journeys, as we all must journey, through the trials and joys that life brings us in the ways that only a woman can or is called upon to do." In her travels, Heidi and her friends move from the idealism and political radicalism of their college years in the 1960s, through the militant feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, and eventually fall into the materialism of the 1980s. Gradually becoming distanced from her friends, she watches them move from the idealism and political radicalism of their college years through militant feminism and eventually back to the materialism they sought to reject in the first place. Heidi's own path to maturity involves an affair with the glib, arrogant Scoop Rosenbaum, a womanizing lawyer who eventually marries for money and position; a deeper but even more troubling relationship with a charming, witty young pediatrician who turns out to be gay; and increasingly disturbing contacts with women, now much changed, who were part of her childhood and college years.

Act One: Prologue--1989

As the title of the play suggests, it is a chronicle of the life of Heidi, who opens the play as a lecturer speaking about the almost ignored role of women painters prior to the 20th century. In 1989, Heidi Holland, a professor at Columbia University, discusses paintings by Sonfonisba Anguissola, Clara Peeters, and Lily Martin Spencer, observing that they, like many other notable women artists, are still excluded from art history survey textbooks.

Scene One--1965

After the prologue, the play unfolds in a series of flashbacks beginning with a 1965 high school dance attended by Heidi and Susan Johnston, both sixteen years old. Although Heidi is content watching the dance alongside her girlfriend, the libidinous Susan insists that they stand apart, claiming that their proximity might dissuade boys from approaching; she also plans to downplay her intelligence to make herself more appealing. When Susan departs to seek a partner in a "ladies' choice" dance, Heidi seats herself and reads a book. Soon Peter Patrone sits beside her. After they indulge in some witty repartee, he shows Heidi how to dance.

Scene Two--1968

Two years later, Heidi meets Scoop Rosenbaum at a New Hampshire dance for Eugene McCarthy supporters. Editor of The Liberated Earth News, the flirtatious Princeton University dropout barrages Heidi with disturbing questions; taken aback, she tries to distance herself from him, even introducing herself as Susan Johnston. Reflecting on Scoop's unbridled assertiveness, Heidi wonders "what mothers teach their sons that they never bother to tell their daughters." Scoop eventually reveals that Heidi's real name has been plainly in sight on her name tag and observes that she represents an "unfortunate contradiction in terms--a serious good  person," whose unwavering idealism, he foresees, will make her an anachronism. They leave together.

Scene Three--1970

In 1970, Heidi visits Susan at a meeting of the Huron Street Ann Arbor Consciousness Raising Rap Group. After observing Susan (now a law student), Jil (a housewife), Fran (a lesbian physicist), and Becky (a troubled teenager) praise one another's achievements and accept their differences, the recalcitrant Heidi, now a Yale University art history graduate, reveals her emotonal dependency on Scoop. She then declares, "I hope our daughters never feel like us. I hope al our daughters feel so . . . worthwhile" and receives the support of the group.

Scene Four--1974

Four years later, Heidi and Peter meet at the Chicago Art Institute, where she and a small group of women are demanding greater recognition of women in art. Heidi still sleeps with Scoop but claims that she is no longer emotionally attached to him; she adds that Susan recently abandoned a Supreme Court clerkship alongside Scoop to live on a woman's health and legal collective in Montana. Peter, at first joking that he has "developed a violent narcissistic personality disorder," eventually confesses that he is "a liberal homosexual pediatrician." This revelation angers Heidi, who had assumed that Peter desperately loved her. Heidi, however, remains with Peter after the protest leader excludes him from the rally because of his gender, and the two reaffirm their friendship. With Mark, Peter's most recent romantic interest, they conduct their own march on the curator's office.

Scene Five--1977

In 1977, Heidi, Peter, and Susan come to the Pierre Hotel for Scoop's wedding to Lisa Friedlander. Left with Heidi in the anteroom, Scoop, a junior associate at Sullivan Cromwell, reveals that he is about to return to journalism. He also admits to Heidi that, while he loves her, he would not marry her because she is too competitive; Lisa, in comparison, represents a blander but less demanding alternative. "That's why you 'quality time' girls are going to be one generation of disappointed women," he tells her. "interesting, exemplary, even sexy, but basically unhappy. The ones who open doors usually are." Yet the two embrace and dance as the scene concludes.

Act Two: Prologue--1989

Heidi discusses a painting by Lilla Cabot Perry at a 1988 Columbia University lecture, identifying herself with the subjects of Cabot's "Lady with a Bowl of Violets" and Lily Martin Spencer's "We Both Must Fade." To Heidi, these women "seem slightly removed from the occasions at hand. They appear to watch closely and ease the way fro the others to join in."

Scene One--1980

Scene 1 takes place at Lisa's baby shower in New York, soon after the assassination of John Lennon. Scoop, now the editor of  the trendy Boomer magazine, is ostensibly at a panel in Princeton; Besty, also pregnant, is his managing editor. Heidi has just returned from England; Susan has graduated from business school and accepted a job in Los Angeles as executive vice president for a production company. Also attending is Denise, an optimistic, young urban professional woman about eight years younger that Heidi and Susan. After Lisa leaves the room, discussion reveals that Scoop is actually in town with his mistress; it is apparent that Lisa, aware of Scoop's waywardness, has been forcing her cheerfulness. The women toast the Beatles and themselves as the lights fade.

Scene Two--1982

In 1982, a pregnant Denise unites baby-boomers Heidi, Peter, and Scoop on the talk show "Hello New York." Peter, encouraged by Denise to flaunt his homosexuality, is openly sarcastic to his hostess. Scoop, on the other hand, spouts cliches about being "a simple newspaper man" who is part of "a generation that is still idealistic." Heidi, the least forceful guest, is eventually silenced as the men cut her off with their self-indulgent remarks. Afterward, she rebukes them and leaves to meet her current beau; Peter leaves Scoop alone after directing his own hostile comments toward him.

Scene Three--1984

In 1984, Heidi meets Susan at a trendy New York restaurant. Although she desires to speak with Susan on a highly personal matter, Susan has invited Denise, now her story editor, to join them. They propose that Heidi act as a consultant on a comedy about three single women, almost thirty, rooming together in a large urban center. Reminding them that she is a serious art historian and essayist, Heidi declines. Denise and Susan then depart, leaving Heidi alone at the table.

Scene Four--1986

In 1986, Heidi speaks at the Plaza Hotel at a meeting of the Miss Crain's School East Coast Alumnae Association. Unprepared for her presentation, she delivers a rambling speech in which she compares herself with the other women in her exercise class. She ends by stating that she feels stranded. "And I thought the whole point was that we wouldn't feel stranded. I thought the point was we were all in this together."

Scene Five--1987

The following year, Heidi pays a surprise visit to Peter at the children's ward he operates; it is midnight on Christmas Eve, and, he explains, the day after three children with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) were burned out of their house in Queens. Heidi, who has brought gifts for Peter's immune-deficient patients, tells him of her plan to leave New York for Minnesota. Upset, Peter chastises her for planning to abandon her work and her friends, himself included. Explaining that he has been losing too many friends to AIDS, he calls Heidi's melancholy "a luxury." After Heidi decides to remain, they embrace and wish each other a Merry Christmas.

Scene Six--1989

The final scene finds Heidi in a rocking chair in her empty new apartment. Scoop arrives unexpectedly, and, in a series of revelations, tells her that she is the only person he has cared about consistently over the past thirty years. He adds that he has sold his magazine: After learning that Heidi had the courage to adopt a baby girl, he decides to take a similarly drastic step and embark on a political career. As he leaves, Scoop dubs Heidi "a mother for the nineties." Left to herself again, Heidi hopes that her daughter will be happier than she has been. She lifts her baby up and dubs her "a heroine for the twenty first!"

Themes and Meanings

Heidi's chronic unhappiness emerges as on the play's significant constants. By the end of the play, it is clear that her discontent emanates from a profound awareness that she is living in an era during which her cherished ideals have become as passe as any other trend embraced and then discarded by her peers.

While Heidi's mild temperament precludes her becoming a radical activist, she devotes her career to advancing the cause of women in art, even when this sort of dedication is no longer in vogue among her friends Susan, for example, distances herself from the movement's concerns when she immerses herself in a business career in the 1980's.

If Heidi's feeling of estrangement from other women intensifies during the latter portion of the play, her lack of self-esteem, particularly in relation to Scoop, persists throughout the work. "I keep allowing this guy to account for so much of what I think of myself," she admits to the encounter group three years after meeting him.

Although Heidi's relationship with Susan and Scoop cool during the course of the play, her friendship with Peter deepens with time. To be sure, Peter angers Heidi when, with Scoop, he prevents her from having her on "Hello New York." Yet the two are ultimately bonded by a friendship bulwarked by shared values: Neither of them will find contentment until conventional society changes to respect women and homosexuals as equals. While Scoop and Susan find their niches within the establishment, Heidi and Peter count themselves among the disenfranchised, for whom happiness, contingent on a change in mainstream values, seems remote.

From Masterplot II