“The Heidi Chronicles” Theater review by Adam Feldman

There is much to be said for plays that speak directly to their historical moments, but what becomes of them when the present becomes the past? Wendy Wasserstein’s “The Heidi Chronicles” has always been backward-looking: It traces the journey of its heroine, feminist art historian Heidi Holland (Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss), through nearly 25 years of American cultural shifts, from the idealism of the 1960s through the self-centeredness of the late 1980s. The play’s first Broadway revival, directed by Pam MacKinnon, offers consistent (if mild) good humor in its survey of the challenges faced by door-opening women like Heidi: ”Interesting, exemplary, even sexy, but basically unhappy,” as her boorishly savvy ex-boyfriend Scoop (American Pie’s Jason Biggs) describes them. Now that we are 25 years away from the play’s once-current finale, however, the pulse on which Wasserstein had her finger sounds fainter.