Stereotopical

By T.E.Kalem

UNCOMMON WOMEN AND OTHERS

by Wendy Wasserstein

Drama is not a photographic art. Holding the mirror up to nature has virtually nothing to do with producing mirror images. Unfortunately, Wendy Wasserstein seems to have written her first play with a Polaroid.

Uncommon Women and Others, produced by Manhattan's Phoenix Theater, begins as a mini-reunion in a restaurant. Five Mount Holyoke College graduates (the "uncommon" ones) have got together six years later for one of those treacherous show-and-tell sessions. In flashback, the women return to their senior year. The college feels tremors of future culture shock, the expanding, unnerving world of women's goals and options.

The group cannot fully participate in the genteel rituals of late-evening milk and crackers or "gracious living" (drinking sherry by candlelight in hostess gowns) without satirically mocking them. Yet they sense a disquieting gap between themselves and a catatonic freshman (Anna M. Levine) who announces that she plans to make a film about the linguistic philosopher Wittgenstein.

While the play is laced with affectionately bantering humor and a gamy ration of powder-room candor, the characters are Stereotopical. The overachieving careerist (Jill Eikenberry) has become a lawyer. The placid one (Ann McDonough) who opted for marriage opts for pregnancy. The rollicking rebel (Swoosie Kurtz) who planned to write a novel gets writer's block. Prosaic justice? All of the actresses are well skilled. They might be better employed.

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