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From C-R to PR: Feminist Theatre in America

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Contemporary American Theatre
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Abstract

Early in Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Heidi Chronicles (1988), the hero visits a consciousness-raising group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It’s 1970, five years into the chronicle that will follow Heidi to 1988. The scene in an Ann Arbor church basement serves as one of many occasions for Wasserstein to score some comic points off the American women’s movement. Wasserstein paints the C-R group as a touchy-feely hugfest where women embrace each other evey couple of seconds, and declare their love. Heidi, who is just visiting, remains critical, outside and unmoved, until she lets loose about an inattentive arrogant boyfriend. ‘I hope our daughters never feel like us,’ she concludes. ‘I hope our daughters feel so fucking worthwhile. Do you promise we can accomplish that much?’

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Bibliography

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Authors

Editor information

Bruce King (co-editor of the Modern Dramatists series and editor of the English Dramatists)

Copyright information

© 1991 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Solomon, A. (1991). From C-R to PR: Feminist Theatre in America. In: King, B. (eds) Contemporary American Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21582-9_13

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