SOURCE: "Drama and the Dialogic Imagination: 'The Heidi Chronicles' and 'Fefu and Her Friends'," in Modern Drama, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, March, 1991, pp. 88-106.

In the following excerpt, Keyssar expresses her disappointment with the tremendous success of The Heidi Chronicles. She contends that, according to Mikhail Bakhtin's definition of meaningful theater, in which drama is "simultaneously entire unto itself and part of the whole culture," The Heidi Chronicles is "aggressively monologic" and "self-contained," thus alienating large segments of society.

The Heidi Chronicles was first workshopped in April 1988 by the Seattle Repertory Theatre; on 12 December 1988 it opened at Playwrights Horizons in New York City; three months later, it transferred to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway, where it quickly became one of the major hits of the season. Awards have poured down upon the play and its author: in addition to the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony for best...