Heidi Chronicles and Detachment

I found an article on Heidi Chronicles that didn’t particularly like the play. It discussed how Heidi was always detached from everyone around her and despite the fact that time period is so essential to the setting, the culture of the eras weren’t really examined because of this detachment. I think that is definitely true, she is giving lectures during the play but thinking about the past, and during many of the events in the past such as the dance, the girl-power session, the TV interview, she isn’t entirely engaged. She acknowledges the detachment of feminism when she spoke about women “I thought the point was that we wouldn’t feel stranded. I thought the point was that we were all in this together.” When considering this idea of detachment I think I better understand the ending. The final image portrays Heidi having it all, but we don’t really see exactly how she gets there, it feels just kind of tacked on. It enhances the notion of detachment and lessens the pure satisfaction that the audience would feel at a clear happily ever after.  I think Heidi remains detached as a sort of defense mechanism, she isn’t sure what she wants for a while and if she wants to keep her idealism she cant get too sucked into what her society is doing. Also I think the idea of having it all demands detachment. When you constantly have to juggle a career, a child, maybe husband, all of which you want to feel completely devoted to and fulfilled by, you will often have to prioritize and will feel guilty about giving less to one thing. Because women play so many roles they aren’t really sure who they are and they cant feel fulfilled in entirety. The article also compared Heidi, Scoop and Peter to Vegas comedians, who laugh at their own jokes but aren’t very funny. I must agree I didn’t find the play very funny and they do tend to “perform” to others because of their wit but their not really one of them.

Article:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4383792?&Search=yes&searchText=chronicles&searchText=heidi&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dheidi%2Bchronicles%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=507&returnArticleService=showFullText