SOURCE: A review of The Heidi Chronicles, in The Hudson Review, Vol. XLII, No. 3, Autumn, 1989, pp. 464-65.

An educator, critic, and nonfiction writer, Hornby teaches and writes about drama. In the following, he offers a negative assessment of The Heidi Chronicles.

Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles is a lifeless, vulgar play, rendered all the more irritating by the many awards that this non-playwright has won simply because she is a woman, writing on fashionable issues. Wasserstein does not even begin to know how to construct a play. Her characters are automatons, set in motion as targets for crude ridicule; her plots are aimless; her ideas are trite; her dialogue is pretentiously witless.

Heidi, originally performed at Playwrights Horizons, was transferred to Broadway last March in a surprisingly lavish production, starring the superb Joan Allen in a role well beneath her talent. In thirteen scenes, the play takes its...