Uncommon Women And Others Book

This may be my favorite Wendy Wasserstein play, or at least of the ones I read. And I wonder why it isn't produced more? I've never seen it show up in a season or ever see an audition announcement for it. A theatre discussion talked about how some of the older plays written by women ( of which I would think this qualifies) and how they are no longer relevant, and yes, there are some dated aspects of it, but the themes are dated, just like there are some dated aspects of Shakespeare but the themes are not one.

This play deals with the ideas of finding yourself in college, and preparedness to face the outside world. All the women have been told they are uncommon women and they each go through their own paths in terms of what that means. The bookends of the play are not set in the college, but rather the real time the women are living in now, the rest is a flashback to their college days, to the questioning and hopes and desires. Have they reached all that they had aimed for by the end of the play - where they are back in real time discussing it. It doesn't seem as if the ideas they had in college have changed but maybe they need a bit more time? Five years wasn't enough so you know, maybe they'll be uncommon women in the next ten years. What exactly dictates an uncommon women anyway?

It also covers the ideas of traditions giving way to new ideas. In college the women still have a house mother and have tea in a weird daily etiquette moment and by the end of the college section the house mother has retired and maybe some of the traditions will go with her. It's clearly second wave feminist changes but that could be really interesting in regards to what's going on currently in that department, in comparisons to third wave, or radicals, or how it needs more intersectionality.

The characters are very interesting, definite people, not stereotypes. They all want different things and relate to one another in different ways. I was really interested in Carter because she doesn't say much, she's the youngest, but also that probably means she'll benefit the most from what the others have learned and gone through and forged paths for. We don't get to see her in real time though, which would have been a small complaint, would have been interesting to hear what she was up to in her own words.

And a lot of really great dialogue between women!