Romance is not necessarily the central theme of “Isn’t It Romantic,” the play that was performed in the Harper Joy Theatre during Family Weekend. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein, “Isn’t It Romantic” tells the parallel stories of two female former classmates as they negotiate the post-college world in the 1980s.

According to Miriam Cook, who played the protagonist Janie Blumberg, “[The play] explores the struggle between wanting the ideal and staying true to yourself.”

Cook said that this struggle plays out between her character and her character’s friend, Harriet Cornwall. “Harriet begins by being very adamant about who she is and then gives it up to have this ideal life, whereas Janie thinks about having this ideal life with the Jewish doctor, but in the end she realizes she has to sacrifice her individuality in order to do that,” said Cook.

For Cook, one of the things that allowed her to get in character was learning a Brooklyn accent. “It helped me learn where [Janie] came from, what her strengths were,” said Cook. Cook also felt that learning about Wasserstein and what she struggled with was helpful because Janie is the “autobiographical character” in the play.

Grace Harnois played the role of Lillian Cornwall, Harriet’s mother. Lillian was a woman who had risen to the top in a business world that was dominated by men in the 1980s. Harnois stressed the complexity of her character. “Lillian is really interesting because on the surface she’s bitchy and kind of power-hungry and needing to be on top of everything all the time,” said Harnois. “But she does have a lot of regrets about things that she left behind.”

Harnois said that she had to play a balancing act with her character. She felt that the audience despises Lillian at the beginning of the play but warms up to her as the plot progresses. Harnois had to make sure that her character wasn’t too cold or unlikable.

Another challenge for Harnois was in the first scene when she is having a phone conversation. “[You have] to really put yourself in that situation and make up this whole other script that isn’t even written,” said Harnois.

Cook said that she was challenged because she is a shy person, so she had trouble figuring out when her character needed to be shy and when she needed to be more outgoing. “It was hard for me to figure out…where [Janie] really needed to come out and say things and get angry, because she does get angry. She gets angry a lot. But I’m not a person who gets angry.”

Harnois spoke about some of the challenges the audience faced in understanding the circumstances of the characters. “With Lillian, it’s so hard to imagine how she did get where she is. She’s in a man’s world and she had to do everything by male rules but she still made her way to the top.”