Andy Drachenberg: The first question I’m curious about is why The Heidi Chronicles – what captured your initial interest?
Pam MacKinnon: It’s such a great play, I have long been an admirer of Wendy Wasserstein’s work. The muscularity of the language, the humor, the politics woven into something that is actually really emotional and psychological; a deeply, deeply personal play. This is a pivotal play -Wendy Wasserstein was the first woman to single-handedly receive the Tony Award for Best Play for Heidi , and it still feels incredibly relevant.
AD: This is the first revival of this show on Broadway in a long time. What is the gravity of taking that project on when it has such a legacy?
PM: Heidi initially ran just a couple of years before I moved to New York, so I actually feel grateful that I don’t know that production. I always feel that when you’re doing a big play (or any play), you want to approach it with your collaborators as if this is a first time project. Yes, I do know this is a big-boned play. This is a play that people own in their memories. I hope that we can honor that legacy by making it our own.
AD: Lets talk about Heidi herself. She is a very difficult person to kind of put in a box. As a director you have to find a way, with help from actors and other people like the writer, to create this person and make them come alive on stage. How are you approaching Heidi?
PM: That is for rehearsal. I think you are correct in saying that she’s very elusive. She is a central character and there are moments in the play where she disappears, she loses her voice, and then the playwright forces herself to find her voice and find her action again. It’s very exciting to have the wonderful Elisabeth Moss on board to really bring this person to life. It is all about honoring Wendy Wasserstein’s intent by really mining the language and figuring out what these relationships are. The characters will spring from that.
AD: You’ve worked with a lot of highly intellectual writers. From a directing standpoint how does Wendy fit into this fold compared to your other people you have worked with? How is her work different or similar?
PM: Wendy has a clear voice. You start reading a Wendy Wasserstein play and you get swept into her world, her syntax, her sense of humor. As I said before, it is deeply, deeply personal and she is writing for herself as much as for the audience. It’s writers who set themselves a task of perhaps not knowing where they are going when they first sit down to write. They are interested in a problem and it takes the play to articulate the problem, not even necessarily the solution. The writers I am most fond of do that using incredible language skill.
AD: It’s been said that Wendy can represent a generation as a voice Do you agree with that?
PM: I have been speaking to a lot of dear friends of hers because I never got to actually meet Wendy. It is interesting to talk to people who knew her really well and grew up with her and forged careers together. There is certainly a generation of theatre makers in this town who were really influenced by her and influenced her, and that shows up on the page. It will be interesting for New York to hear this play 26 years later. She is a voice of a generation and it is very much a baby boomer world. It’s a chronicle, it is called that for a reason. But because she writes so specifically and it is so psychological and emotional grounded, it feels incredibly universal and this is a universal coming of age story for this young woman as well as for the men and women that surround her.
AD: When you are talking with your friends how do you describe The Heidi Chronicles? What is The Heidi Chronicles?
PM: It is a coming of age story and it is about a group of friends, how they meet, and how they grow up both together and individually within that group. The trials and tribulations of trying to lead both a political and communally significant life, as well as trying to find your own individual place in the world when sometimes those things are at odds. It’s a chronicle of a life.
AD: If we look at relationships in the piece, none of them are “typical.” What do the relationships that tell this story provide for this show that is unique or different from what you would expect to see. It’s not a romantic comedy. It’s not a revolution about taking a stand, yet it’s also all of these things. How does this piece together? What does that do for you as a director in terms of creating a story?
PM: They are little slices of life and it’s definitely a memory play, so the slices that are in display have significance. They add up emotionally. There is an accumulation of this calendar of emotional and social events that our title character has to live with and try to have some kind of reckoning of. It’s 14 scenes and therefore those 13 transitions are important too to put forth information of our time period and where we are going next both sonically as well as visually. It is our job to forward the story and then land us in a very specific place that isn’t just about political events but it’s also an emotional place for our characters.
AD: You were just talking about how many shows are using this structure today. How does The Heidi Chronicles fit into the theatre world today? In terms of a piece to be begin with, and one now being back in the world of newer theatre.
PM: It has a very contemporary feel to it. There is a lot of humor in the play but it’s also very bittersweet. There are really incredibly crafted set-up punch line moments and that is just how these people speak, but you also go through scenes with a bit of a furrowed brow of “how does this add up?” That just feels very present tense, very contemporary; the writing feels very spot on.
AD: A lot of people had been timid or trepidatious about using the word “feminist” or “feminism” in association with this work. But it is also hard to completely ignore that it was a movement that was happening while this play exists and Heidi in ways is a part of that. How do you consider that element?
PM: “Feminist” and “Feminism” have unfortunately become bad words in our society, and that is a tragedy. These are good words with meaning and I have no problem recognizing that. Feminism is one of the wonderfully strong labels this play investigates.
AD: Has anything in particular sparked your excitement as we approach the first day of rehearsal??
PM: I am truly very exited about working with Lizzie Moss. I think that she is incredibly smart, incredibly personable, a sort of a dynamic shape shifter kind of actress who at once is a leading lady as well as somehow a supporting player. That fits exactly in this world of how I’m thinking of Heidi.
AD: We are looking at a trio here – one of the most well respected writers, one of the most reputed directors and the actress that has been said to be one of the most exciting actresses of her generation? Any response?
PM: It’s a perfect storm. It is all about then rolling up your sleeves and getting to work. Our job becomes sort of small and intimate for a while we get to explore this story, we get to crack open this story, we get to pour in as much of ourselves as we are willing to pour in and I think Wendy’s play will catch us.
PAM MacKINNON (Director) recent credits include Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance(Broadway), Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Broadway, Steppenwolf and Arena Stage; Tony and Drama Desk Awards, Outer Critic Circle nomination); Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park (Broadway, Playwrights Horizons and Mark Taper; Tony and Lortel nominations and Obie Award); Bruce Norris’ The Qualms (Steppenwolf); Sarah Teem’s When We Were Young and Unafraid (Manhattan Theatre Club); Donald Margulies’ Dinner with Friends (Roundabout Theatre Company). Pam is an alumna of the Drama League, Women’s Project and the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab and an Associate Artist of the Roundabout Theater Company, executive board member of Stage Directors and Choreographers and board chair of the New York City downtown company Clubbed Thumb, dedicated to new American plays.