From a profile in the Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1991
Heidi chronicled
Actress finds life imitating art in play`s Chicago debut Lady Macbeth was ruthless ambition. Blanche Dubois was withered delusion. Neither leading lady had much to do with the real life of actress Janice St. John, who has played both in acclaimed area productions.
But St. John does see a lot of herself in Heidi Holland, the title character of ”The Heidi Chronicles,” which opens Monday at the National Jewish Theater in Skokie. Like St. John, Heidi is pushing 40, feminist, single, interested in art and deeply ambivalent about 1980s materialism.
”Heidi is an important role for me. I have a real personal connection to the character,” St. John said. ”We have the same political views and we both notice how women get ignored a great deal.”
In the play`s prologue, Heidi Holland, an art historian and author, lectures on the female artists left out of a standard art history textbook, which at one time didn`t include women. The allusion to the classic ”History of Art” by H.W. Janson (amended in later editions) becomes a motif in the play for the way men ignore women.
St. John knows that textbook well herself, having wondered at its womanless pages when she was an aspiring painter in college in the `70s.
| Credit Type | Production | Season |
|---|---|---|
| Actor | Ma Maw Black Sheep | 1985-86 Season |