Andy Drachenberg: Tell us about ‘The Heidi Chronicles.’
Elisabeth Moss: There are several ways you could describe this play-it’s about a generation, specifically the baby boom generation. The best answer is Wendy’s answer: the play is about how friends are your family, and for me that is what it is really about. You go through life with blood relations and you have friends that you have for years and they become just as much of your family as anyone else.
AD: How does this play relate to Wendy’s life and what she was seeing around her?
EM: There is so much of Wendy in all of her plays; all writers put so much of themselves in their work. You could say the play is autobiographical but then again it’s not in a lot of ways. There is always a Wendy character in her plays, and that is Heidi, but some people have said that Heidi is one of the least Wendy characters. It’s almost as if Wendy wrote a very positive and heroic version of herself. Wendy wrote plays about her school years, the story of her family, and this show about the people that were closest to her and knew her the best.
AD: Throughout the show Heidi has a lot of triumphs and failures, how do you connect to her perspective of life?
EM: It is such a relatable idea, someone feeling like they have to make certain choices in their life and what happens if you don’t make those choices. Nowadays we are much more open to the idea of taking different routes and forging our own path. Whether it is adopting a child, getting married, not getting married, or never having children we are much more open to those ideas. Wendy was very ahead of her time and almost ahead of herself in her own life. I really relate to the idea of forging your own path in life and not doing what everybody else does. Someone said something really great to me after seeing the show, saying that they wanted to be braver and they wanted to make braver choices in all areas of their life. That really moved me- if you can leave this play and feel like that way, then I feel like we did a really good job and we did what Wendy wanted. I relate to the idea of wanting to be strong, independent, and brave.
AD: The show goes through decades of time and it looks at the perspective of a woman in her teens, in her twenties, in her thirties, and in her forties. What research did you do that helped you prepare for this role?
EM: We had the privilege of being in rehearsals for four weeks with Pam [MacKinnon] and a wonderful woman named Jenna. Jenna brought so much in for us: books, information, etc. She was constantly on the computer, and if we ever had a question she would have an answer five minutes later. Our oldest cast member is 35 and our youngest is 22- we are not of the baby boom generation. There was a lot of stuff that had to be explained to us. Now we are all “experts” on the baby boom generation. I know more about feminism from doing this play than I did from doing nine years of “Mad Men,” because of what I learned in that rehearsal room. Heidi is very much a part of that movement, apart of that second wave of feminism. We did a lot of research and reading. I read every play Wendy ever wrote and a book called “Wendy and The Lost Boys,” written by Julie Salamon. All of these were extremely instrumental in our research and helping us understand Wendy and the play.
AD: What about this piece connects with today’s audience?
EM: It’s about people, and it’s about certain markers in history that influenced the people of the time. I think the reason audiences connect to the show is why I connected with it, and why the rest of the cast connected with it: not a whole lot has changed. It’s about friends and relationships, what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man and that is something that doesn’t change. The play centers on Heidi and her relationship with two men, Scoop and Peter. Everyone can identify with the Scoop relationship because it’s the relationship that is intoxicating and toxic and you can’t seem to get away from it, but you keep going back to it even though you know it’s not good for you. I think everyone can identify with Heidi and Peter’s relationship because Peter is a person that Heidi loves with all of her heart. He is her best friend and her soul mate but for one reason or another she can’t be with him. My mom came and saw the play and she said, “It’s so surprising to me that this play was written in 1988 because the perspective that Wendy had on that time period is as if it was written now. She was so able to analyze what was going on in the ‘80s, and it’s almost as if you wouldn’t be able to do that until now.”
AD: The play is incredibly multidimensional because it has a romantic story, a heroin story, and all these different stories that you can’t fit into a box. A lot of these story lines are heavy and pose very significant questions about life. However, the show pieces them all together and with a sense of humor. How do you think it does that?
EM: Wendy had this wonderful way of looking at life through a lens of humor. She adds humor to darker situations to show that life is not sad or happy-it’s both. When writers can make you cry and then laugh or laugh then cry, it is beautiful to watch because that’s what life is. When you go to the theatre you should be able to cry, you should be able to laugh, you should want to applaud, and you should ultimately think about what you just saw.
AD: What would you tell people is the one thing about bringing this show back to Broadway that makes you most excited?
EM: There are so many things! One of the many things that makes me most excited about doing this show is being a part of the community. There is nothing like the hustle and bustle around 7/7:30 when everyone is running to the theatre and the streets are packed. It is very moving to see all these people, in an era of televisions and computers, still going to the theatre. That excitement is really great. As far as the broader picture I feel like there is a resurgence of feminism, which is really interesting to see. Having been observant of feminism over the last decade I have really noticed there has been a resurgence of women’s rights and equality. It feels very relevant and important. I also feel that the decision Heidi makes at the end of the play is much more understood now then it might have been at that time. It’s interesting that she makes this decision and hopes that things will be a little bit better for the next generation of women. Speaking as a woman of that generation things did get better. At the end of every night after this play I feel very positive that things are moving in that way.
ELISABETH MOSS (Heidi Holland) returns to Broadway as the title character in the revival of The Heidi Chronicles, Wendy Wassterstein’s Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning play. Moss’s additional theatre credits include her Broadway debut in the 2008 revival of David Mamet’s Speed the Plow; her New York theatre debut, Franny’s Way and her West End debut in Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour. Her film credits include the upcoming High-Rise, Meadowland, Queen Of Earth and Truth, as well as past films Listen Up Philip, The One I Love, On The Road, Get Him To The Greek, The Missing, Girl Interrupted, Mumford, A Thousand Acres and Virgin. Moss’s television credits include her Emmy-nominated turn as Peggy Olson in “Mad Men,” her Golden Globe Award-winning performance in the mini-series “Top of the Lake” and her role as Zoey Bartlett on “The West Wing.