This wonderful play was filmed as part of PBS' "Theater in America" series. Although this Wendy Wasserstein work never played on Broadway, it's among her best plays.A group of college friends are having a lunch and remembering their college days at Mount Holyoke 8 years before. The flashbacks show us the women as students at a women's college in the early 70s just as the old sorority system and "gracious living" are dying out.On the cusp of their adult lives, the women fret about careers, grad school, dating, feminism, and marriage while they strive to be educated a liberated. They are uncommon women.Meryl Streep plays Leilah, the serious student who is uneasy with her comfortable life and who wants to do something important. Swoosie Kurtz is the rebellious Rita. Jill Eikenberry as Kate is analytical. Alma Cuervo is the unsure Holly. Ellen Parker is Muffet, the one with no real goals. Ann McDonough is the wifely Samantha. Cynthia Herman plays the peppy Susie. Anna Levine is the near-comatose Carter. Josephine Nichols plays the house mother, Mrs. Plumm.All the performances are terrific. Kurtz steals the show as the funny and irreverent Rita who ends up in Vermont and is still trying to write her novel. Cuervo is very touching as she calls a doctor in Minneapolis who she met in a museum a while back. Nichols is also touching as she is about to retire and "gracious living" is being abolished. Her character is a sharp contrast between what life offered a woman graduate 40 years before and the choices the uncommon women have in 1970.This is a funny and wistful look at a "seven sisters" college and at how our society has changed. A highlight is the funny song "We're Saving Ourselves for Yale." The play was staged off Broadway in 1977 (where Glenn Close played Leilah).

I miss Wendy Wasserstein, the playwright, who wrote feminist related plays. This play is probably my favorite starring Meryl Streep, Swoosie Kurtz, Jill Eikenberry, Ann McDonough, and Ellen Parker long before they were famous. Streep just won an Oscar. In this taped version of the stage play, the women of Mount Holyoke College talk about college life. I loved the interaction among the women. I wished that Wendy had lived because she really was the voice of women in this generation. This is not Sex and the City and thank God. These women are strong, intelligent, and independent. Almost 30 years later, Meryl Streep is one of America's greatest film actresses, Jill Eikenberry struck big with L.A. Law, Swoosie Kurtz is still on Broadway but also known for her appearances on television and film, and Ellen Parker won an Emmy for her role on Guiding Light. The story about these women characters reflected the women who played them.

In the end when they are talking about what became Lelah, we are told that she married an Iraqi man while studying in Iraq and that she became Muslim and "can never get divorced." Given that this movie was made a while ago, I guess ignorance about Islam and propaganda against it is not a new thing. Muslim women can get divorce if they want for all sorts of reasons, including lack of sexual satisfaction for reasons such as male impotency. Also, when Lelah's decision of marrying an Iraqi man is discussed, everyone shakes their head in dismay and disapproval to make clear that this indicates the failure of an independent woman to want to settle down with an iraqi man.

A very young Meryl Streep and Swoozie Kurtz are included in this excellent Wendy Wasserstein play about young women emerging from an exclusive college. The talent and future of the above as well as the rest of the cast and crew is obvious and their future course to excellence already charted.