The Playgoer: Dolan on Wasserstein

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Thursday, February 02, 2006

Dolan on Wasserstein

"Who will fill her shoes, as a popular, commercially succesful woman playwright unafraid to at least address feminism by name, as well as by concept and conceit, courageous enough to look at women's lives and insist that they be the universal to which other human beings can relate and aspire, empathize and identify?...Many other women playwrights write as well or better than Wendy Wasserstein, with perhaps more nuance, more complexity, more daring forms and contents. But who will gain the power to tell some of our stories on Broadway, as she's done so consistently all these years? Who will replace her as a public humorist, as someone to be counted on to laugh at our foibles as human beings from the perspective of women in a way that Broadway audiences can find accessible, as well as maybe provoking and just a little bit challenging?"

-And for Jill Dolan to concede someone is even "a little bit challenging" already means pretty challenging. Read her here for this overall very mixed and honest assessment by a "radical" feminist of a "liberal" one. Plenty of critique here, yes. But also a tribute to the qualities that stand out now as really significant about Wasserstein's success.

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