Heidi’s Life Journey, Sans Hollywood

When Wendy Wasserstein’s play first premiered off-Broadway in 1988, nobody thought twice about the title, really.

Then it won the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize the following year. Still, if the title brought up an image it was, perhaps, of a certain impish Swiss girl in a book by the same name.

But to have “The Heidi Chronicles” play in Southern California now is to tempt confusion or snickers from some quarters. Still, the California Repertory Company is forging ahead.

For the record: Wasserstein’s prize-winning play has nothing to do with Hollywood madams, stars or influential studio heads. Heidi Fleiss will not make an appearance on stage.

“The Heidi Chronicles” is a journey through one woman’s life, from the mid-1960s through the late ‘80s.

Since the actress playing Heidi must gradually age more than two decades during the play, this is a challenging role. In the production being mounted in the Studio Theatre at Cal State Long Beach, that stretch will be attempted by 20-year-old student actress Sarah Anderson.

The play opens with Heidi’s graduation from high school in 1965. From that relatively peaceful island, our heroine is thrust into the turbulence of 1960s college life.

There is naive idealism and social upheaval, hope and despair.

Heidi joins a women’s consciousness-raising group in the 1970s where she believes that women, by the simple fact of coming together, will change the world. Then there is the rude awakening called the 1980s, in which Heidi will watch her former comrades rush to the corporate gold mines.

It might sound like a simplistic skimming of the cliches we invent about decades, the wild ‘60s, the “Me” ’70s, the greedy ‘80s, but Wasserstein manages to transcend the obvious characteristics of each decade to create a deeply personal look at a woman’s journey.

And she manages to tell her story without getting arrested. Imagine.

“The Heidi Chronicles” plays at 8 p.m. today, and then Dec. 1 to 4 at the 225-seat Studio Theatre on the campus of Cal State Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd. Tickets are $15. For information: (310) 985-5526.