An Uncommon Woman
Just a few nights back I was part of a group conversation in which, through machinations now lost to my memory, the topic of playwright Wendy Wasserstein came up. She is apparently best known for her Heidi Chronicles, but I first knew her — and think of her most fondly — in connection with her earlier play Uncommon Women and Others.
Oh, I remember now! We were eating with a group of 10 or so when one of the people accidentally tapped her crystal stemware with a knife. All conversation stopped to wait for her announcement. I flashed on "Announcement! Announcement!" as a moment from Uncommon Women, a line that kept coming out of the mouth of one of the women characters. I smiled.
The play was set against the last year of "gracious living" at Mt Holyoke College, alma mater of Emily Dickenson, in various spots around a group residence for young women at the school. I don't know that the theme, or themes, of the play, mostly dealing with how these young women matured into, well, mature women was terribly profound. Nevertheless, the play always seemed to me to capture a lot of truth in two memorable and very funny acts.
I saw the play first on television years ago (a production on PBS). I also saw the play performed when I was doing graduate research at Duke, c. 1980. I enjoyed it immensely each time, and I like the memories of it that I have, and I find large chunks of it surprisingly memorable.
How odd it seems then, that Ms. Wasserstein should pop into my conversational stream so close to one year after her death, as I was reminded by this nice remembrance by Michelle Fiordaliso.