Isn't it Romantic

by Wendy Wasserstein

Isn't It Romantic

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Wendy Wasserstein was an award-winning American playwright and an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She was the recipient of the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Reviews

[Brina]

Wendy Wasserstein was taken from us way too soon. I am reading through all of her plays, even if it means convincing the librarians to order the obscure ones through interlibrary loan. All her plays have the same underlying theme: women who finished college in the early to mid 1970s- my parents generation- had to make a decision if they wanted to be career women or obtain their Mrs degree: get married and start a family. Despite the feminist movement gaining steam, at the time it was still considered difficult for women to “have it all.” Wasserstein got this. She made the decision to be a working woman and gave the world all her remarkable plays. Her words from 1979, first produced into a play in 1983, are so insightful, even though she happened to write this short gem of a play the year I was born. Thankfully, the women of my generation can have children and go to work or do one or the other and not look as though we are sacrificing one facet of our lives for the other. Wasserstein has been gone for awhile now and her plays never moved on to write about subsequent generations of women. I am confident that she would have a lot to say about us.

4 stars 👩‍💼👩🏻‍⚕️👩‍🚒👮‍♀️👩‍🎤👩‍👧

[Grace Leneghan]

Wendy Wasserstein never disappoints. I loved the telephone messages concept throughout and how most of them in the original cast at PH in NYC in 1983 were famous actors (Meryl Streep, Patti Lupone, Kevin Kline, etc). The audience would have just heard their voices, instead of ever seeing their character. I thought all the characters were lovable and real, especially the friendship between Janie and Harriet. Really counting my blessings I wasn't a young career driven woman in the 70s/80s who also wanted a family because the media at the time, which still guilted and chastised women for wanting both, would have annoyed the hell out of me.

[anna]

Kind of the antithesis of what I'd read if given the choice. And it makes me believe, probably to my detriment, that a play can be completed in half an hour on a date-less Saturday night - which, to some extent, I believe this was...

[Cynda Reads]

Being well educated and living in New York City sounds so romantic. But is being romantic what is so wanted by these early 1980s women? By the early 1980s it was assumed that if you did not have your MRS by the time you graduated that you would enter the workforce at least in a limited way. One of the characters here starts out as a part time creative at Sesame Street. She has a choice: Will she turn in her MA for a MRS or will she strive to become full time at Sesame Street. The old guidelines no longer apply. Now everything is a choice. The wise still know that a woman cannot have it all. Choices must be made.

Read for Deweys 24-Hour Readathon

[Ray]

Not my favorite Wendy Wasserstein play, but it probably is better on stage than on the page. A little too choppy for my taste, the characters seem to be all over the place, and not firmly rooted. Not up to the level of "The Heidi Chronicles" or "The Sisters Rosensweig"

[Mitchell Smith]

I definitely enjoyed this one more than “Uncommon Women and Others” but I still had a hard time getting through it. Although the ending scene really won me over to be honest. I just wish the previous set up were as strong as that closing scene, both in language and in action. I’m excited to read Wendy’s magnum opus next now that I’m more accustomed to her writing style!

[Rachel]

It's not one of my favorite plays, but it's good enough.

[Emma]

Pretty good, some brilliant moments, and an uncommon ability for capturing the fear of choosing a life to live. Some nonsense, though, and I can't quite tell if it wants to be sincere or a farce.

[Brian McCann]

Just awful. No hint of the playwright she would emerge in the 1990s.

[Allyson Roche]

Patti LuPone having one line in the 1983 production makes me laugh.

[Jojo]

A decent play. I didn't love it but didn't hate it. It was fine.

[Emma Goldin]

Great feminist characters and interesting love stories

[Timur Markowitz]

Really incredible dialogue and character dynamics.

[Theo]

Now remember Cynthia Peterson is Meryl Streep

[Sophia Lattof]

4 points for the story knocked one off for the casual zionism.

[Jessica Whittemore]

Just getting out of college SUUUUUCKS. This play captures a big mood for sure.

[Gregory Knapp]

The current discussion--brought about by the recent Broadway revival of The Heidi Chronicles starring Mad Men's Elizabeth Moss--of whether Wasserstein is "still relevant" is idiotic.

This talented and generous writer--to look for a moment just at her politics (although she is a much bigger writer than her politics)--was part of a group of writers and thinkers and activists who took The Movement as far as it could go at that particular historical moment (the late 1970s and the 1980s).

To look back now with perfect hindsight and ask "is she still relevant" is the wrong, and in fact a meaningless, question. It's like asking if "Babe Ruth" could hit modern day pitching in the Major Leagues.

[Lizzie]

I don't remember much about this one, but I think it's really interesting to write about the post-college ick of life. While this is a "romantic"-ish comedy, it's also about that, and I think I'd appreciate that all the more with a revisit.

I read this originally out of a copy of the Heidi Chronicles collection, which I don't have any more. But I'd like to get one.

[Mylissa]

Weaker then Uncommon Women I felt but still very interesting. Strange choice to have some characters never show up on stage. Can you have it all or in the pursuit of that do you automatically miss out on something? Or are required to lower standards? The pressure of parents. All relevant themes although I think her plays tend to be considered dates but the themes aren't!

[Monique]

I had to perform a monologue from this for my acting class. At first I didn't like it but it grew on me. I really need to read it again to write a more thorough review. I was 21 when I first read/performed this, I'm 37 now. I think time and experience will give me a new perspective on it.

[Martha Bode]

terrific play

[Rebecca]

As in Wasserstein fashion, we are left to question can women have it all?