Wendy Wasserstein’s An American Daughter premiered on Broadway less than 30 years ago, but it already feels like a quaint period piece. It tells the story of a female candidate for surgeon general whose nomination threatens to be derailed over a scandal involving an unanswered jury duty notice. As the play would have it, liberals and conservatives are able to get along famously, the country actually cares about the surgeon general, and a media uproar ensues over a minor oversight. Nowadays, allegations of domestic abuse or financial impropriety aren’t enough to derail a candidate for major office. The only aspect of the play that still holds true, unfortunately, is its depiction of the double standard that applies to men and women.
The play received largely negative reviews, flopped on Broadway, and has rarely been produced since. (There was a 2000 television film starring Christine Lahti.) So it’s nice to see that it’s been revived in an off-Broadway production presented by La Femme Theatre Productions, whose founder and artistic director is Jean Lichty. And therein lies the problem.
Lichty, who has previously appeared in the company’s productions of The Night of the Iguana and A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, has assigned the lead role of Lyssa Dent Hughes to herself. Unfortunately, she’s ill-equipped for it, not only because she’s significantly older than the part calls for, something that proves highly distracting, but also because her vocally grating, one-note performance sucks the energy out of the evening. You don’t have to have seen Kate Nelligan, who played the part on Broadway, to realize that something is missing.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
The play also feels overstuffed, throwing in so many supporting figures and minor subplots that its main themes tend to fall by the wayside. Besides the main character, there’s Walter (Robert Sean Leonard), Lysssa’s supportive professor/writer husband; Judith (Montego Glover), her best friend from childhood, who’s now an oncologist and identifies as a Black Jewish feminist; Lyssa’s father, Alan (Dakin Matthews), a longtime Indiana senator with his finger on the pulse of politics; and Alan’s fourth wife, “Chubby” (a priceless Mary Beth Peil), who concerns herself with D.C. society.
Not to mention Quincy (Carmen Zilles), a young feminist author with whom Walter has a fling; Morrow (Ryan Spahn), a young, gay, conservative friend of the couple; Billy (Will Devary), the senator’s baby-faced spin doctor; and Timber (Chris Ghaffari), an ambitious television journalist whose live interview with Lyssa about the scandal that’s been dubbed “Jurygate” quickly goes off the rails.
The mixture of drawing room comedy and feminist and political themes proves unwieldy, with the playwright’s trademark wit only intermittently in evidence. (I did laugh heartily when Walter explains, “I was Jewish until I was bar mitzvahed.” The relationships among the minor characters feel undeveloped, and the brief liaison between Walter and the much younger Quincy feels like a narrative afterthought. The result is that there’s so much going on that too little of it makes an impact. This version has apparently been cobbled together, featuring the first act from the Broadway production, a second act adapted from a later Chicago production, and various interpolations from six other versions that Wasserstein tinkered with over the years.
It doesn’t help that the play has received a sluggish staging by director Sarna Lapine (Call Me Izzy) that makes the evening feel longer than its already stretched-out two-and-a-half hours. Or that the performances are wildly uneven. The younger actors generally don’t come across well, although they’re admittedly hamstrung by their underwritten roles. Leonard is relaxed and appealing as the husband, although his presence often feels extraneous. The standouts are Glover, vibrant and affecting in the role that won Lynne Thigpen a Tony for the original production, and old pros Matthews and Peil, who are delightful every moment they’re onstage.
The production certainly looks fantastic, thanks to the gorgeous, well-appointed living room set designed by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams and the superb lighting by Alan C. Edwards that makes you feel the sunlight pouring in through the large picture windows.
It may be that Wasserstein’s plays are redolent of their time rather than more enduring works. The 2015 Broadway revival of her Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles, for instance, was not well received. Still, I would look forward to seeing The Sisters Rosensweig again, although God knows it would be difficult to top that original cast.
An American Daughter opened August 11, 2026, at Signature Center and runs through September 20. Tickets and information: lafemmetheatreproductions.org
