Posted on 01/30/2006 10:14:04 AM PST by summer
Playwright Wendy Wasserstein, who celebrated women confronting feminism, careers, love and motherhood in such works as "The Heidi Chronicles" and "The Sisters Rosensweig," died Monday. She was 55.
Wasserstein, who had been battling cancer in recent months, died at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Andre Bishop, head of Lincoln Center Theater and Wasserstein's close friend and mentor, said the cause of death was lymphoma.
"She was an extraordinary human being whose work and whose life were extremely intertwined," Bishop said. "She was not unlike the heroines of most of her plays - a strong-minded, independent, serious good person."
Wasserstein's writing was known for its sharp, often wry observations about what women had to do to succeed in a world dominated by men.
In "The Heidi Chronicles," which won the best-play Tony as well as the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1989, its insecure heroine (played by Joan Allen) takes a 20-year journey beginning in the late 1960s and changes her attitudes about herself, men and other women. "The Sisters Rosensweig," which moved from Lincoln Center to Broadway in 1993, concerned three siblings who find strength in themselves and in each other.
Her most recent work, "Third," which ended a New York run Dec. 18, 2005, dealt with a female college professor, played by Dianne Wiest, whose liberal, feminist convictions are put to the test by a student she sees as the epitome of the white male establishment.
In public, Wasserstein was genial, often quite funny, presenting herself as a rumpled observer of the baby-boom generation.
Many of her plays were initially seen at off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons and later at Lincoln Center Theater, both run by Bishop.
Wasserstein was first noticed with "Uncommon Women and Others," written as a Yale School of Drama graduate thesis. The one-act play was expanded and done off-Broadway in 1977 with Glenn Close, Jill Eikenberry and Swoosie Kurtz in the cast. A year later, this satire about the anxieties of female college graduates was filmed for public television with Meryl Streep replacing Close.
The playwright continued her off-Broadway success with "Isn't It Romantic?" - about a free spirit who rejects her fiance and tries to find a life as a single woman.
In 1997, Broadway saw "An American Daughter," Wasserstein's story of the political downfall of a perfect career woman, played by Kate Nelligan. It was followed in 2000 by "Old Money," her look at money, manners and morals at the beginning and end of the 20th century, done at Lincoln Center's small Mitzi Newhouse Theater.
While primarily a playwright, Wasserstein also wrote for TV and the movies, most notably the screenplay for the 1998 film version of Stephen McCauley's novel, "The Object of My Affection," about a gay man and a pregnant woman who meet and move in together.
Wasserstein was the author of the best-selling children's book, "Pamela's First Musical" (1996). She also wrote two collections of personal essays, "Bachelor Girls," published in 1990, and "Swhiksa Goddess: Or, How I Spent My Forties" (2001).
At age 48, Wasserstein had a daughter, Lucy Jane, born in 1999, three months prematurely. Despite persistent speculation, she always declined to reveal the identity of the girl's father.
"The thing about having a baby (at an) older (age) is that she doesn't have to live her life for me," Wasserstein said in an interview with the Forward, a Jewish weekly. "I can see her, I hope, as a person."
Born Oct. 18, 1950, Wasserstein, the youngest of four children, grew up first in Brooklyn in what she has called, "a nice, middle-class Jewish family," and later in Manhattan. Her father, Morris, was a textile executive.
She attended Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and then went to Yale University, where she became friends with such budding playwrights as Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato and began her theater career.
"I find myself being more interested in my old friends and in deeper alliances," Wasserstein said in an interview with Time last year. "My 50s are also about being a mother and the joy of my daughter Lucy Jane and about loss. Real loss. My sister Sandra died of breast cancer at 60, so I know about things I didn't know about before. My father died two years ago, and then my friend (director) Gerald Gutierrez died. He was 53. I think if you experience loss, you also on some level try to treasure joy. It can be as simple as going to the ballet or being with your child."
Wasserstein is survived by her daughter Lucy Jane; her mother, Lola; a sister, Georgette Levis; and her brother, Bruce Wasserstein, chairman and chief executive of Lazard LLC. [and owner of NY Magazine]
Funeral services will be private.
See my post #38. And have a good day!
PS As you may want to note, my headline included question marks! And, I think my questions are appropriate -- in light of the links already confirmed by the American Cancer Society.
You should see her last play, Third, which in some ways confronted the question of whether the left had gone too far.
Your concern seems to be that the media isn't speculating on whether or not her obesity caused her cancer. Surely, as a conservative, you'd prefer the media not try to speculate about things as though they are fact, right?
My grandmother is very "fluffy" at 93, too!
And going to a basketball game tonight!
"Why are so many women of my generation dying so young?? "
It's the age. The fifties seem to be a spike. It seems that if you can make through your fifties unscathed, you stand a pretty good chance of lasting 20 more years.
I'd be interested to see if there have been any studies along those lines. Every person I know who had/has cancer or heart disease had it diagnosed in their fifites. Then there's a jump to late seventies early eighties.
Good luck at the game!
I'm going to a game tonight too, but I have to play.
I tend to think you're right, that women dying young isn't new to our generation. I can remember my mom lamenting about losing may friends in their 50s. (Don't remember them all being obese ;>) )
Divorced, unwed, widowed? Single mom = PC speech.
What do you mean? That photo of her looking up was very nice. Just because YOU don't like large ladies doesn't mean everyone finds them unattractive.
There's no accounting for taste.
Just because YOU don't like large ladies doesn't mean everyone finds them unattractive.
And vice-versa.
They're not.
Fatness does not necessarily = early death. Some people here are absolutely paranoid about fat. I would conjecture that some of them have eating disorders--bulemia and/or anorexia.
My hefty Aunts, Betty and Alma, lived into their 90's. The thin aunties all seemed to die in their 50's and 60's.
I would like to see some solid statistical data from Summer to back up her theory.
I've seen fatter. Ted Kennedy's still alive, isn't he?
So what was the point of postulating a completely baseless and unsupported relationship between this woman's weight - which you didn't know - and her death?
Now was that photo really necessary????!!!!!
Oh, I've seen so many of her plays and sat through so many scene study classes of her plays that I just can't do it anymore. Her plays were so 7 Sisters, so Yale Drama School, so insulated, so Upper West Side for someone like me who was and still is a college dropout.
Her most recent play sounds interesting. Like it might bwe about a P.C. professor who sees her assumptions challenged.
"But, I was very interested in her career, and here is what I found so fascinating about her career: that she HAD a career as a playwright. Not easy to do if you're a woman, though I don't know why. I think playwriting and screenwriting, as professions, have among the lowest, if not the lowest, percentages of women."
Certainly, the film world is a totally male oriented world - I can't understand any woman who would want to work in that awful environment or try to claw their way into it. But I think NY theatre still has opportunities for women playwrights. Also regional theatre. It's just such a difficult business!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.