What the Constitution Means to Me @ The Winspear Opera House (ATTPAC Broadway Series)
—Jan Farrington
Jam-packed theater, that’s what this is. Heidi Schreck’s award-winning What the Constitution Means to Me will make you think, laugh, and swallow hard around a lump of real worry for the country we all call home. Sometimes you’ll be doing all three at the very same moment. This touring production is only here through January 9th at the Winspear Opera House—but it’s worth your time, and then some.
Playwright Schrek starred in the original production, which won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play, and was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She also appeared in the filmed version streamed on Amazon Prime. It seemed only natural; Heidi Schrek’s personal memories, experiences, and family history are a major part of the play.
For this tour, accomplished actress Cassie Beck (Broadway’s The Humans, The Rose Tattoo) slips into the “Heidi” role with amazing ease: after a momentary recall of the streaming version, I fell for Beck’s portrayal completely. From her sudden, no-fanfare appearance at the edge of the stage, she’s reaching out, engaging the audience, expecting us to listen and react. Her work is made easier, perhaps, by having the play’s original director (Oliver Butler) and Schrek’s original Broadway sidekick onstage—actor Mike Iveson as a hilariously throwback Legionnaire—still onboard.
Beck plays Heidi as a 15-year-old obsessed with the Constitution who earns money for college with a prize-winning speech on the subject. She speaks and debates in old American Legion halls around the state of Washington, where she grew up, and her nemesis is another girl who endlessly employs one idea, that the Constitution is “like a patchwork quilt.” Heidi doesn’t see it that way. The Constitution might be a melting pot, she says—but it’s definitely something “living and warm-blooded…a boiling pot into which we are thrown together.” The grownup Heidi takes the same image, but for her it’s a super-heated “crucible” where we’re all fighting it out together—results uncertain, to say the least.
Along the way, we hear about the Constitution’s “miraculous” impact on American life—and some of the ways it has, and is, failing us. Schrek’s singular contribution is letting us see all this law and history filtered through the story of her own life and family. It’s a document that guarantees amazing protection against government overreach…but forgot to include women, Blacks, some immigrant groups, and indigenous peoples in the deal. Yet it wisely recognizes that “who we are now might not be who we will be,” leaving a space for newly-acknowledged rights to become law. But the Constitution can make you wait—forever, almost—before moving in a direction most Americans want. Schrek calls this “the penalty box of Democracy.”
We hear snippets of audio conversations among Supreme Court justices, who often seem clueless and uncomfortable, particularly in their attempts to understand how American women and their needs (birth control, bodily autonomy) fit into the Constitutional picture. Beck (as Heidi) demonstrates her family’s loud (and well-tested) Greek Tragedy Crying skills. Sobbing, she says, “may be the only appropriate response to everything right now.”
As veteran What the Constitution watchers know, the play ends with a debate between Heidi and a real, live young American on whether we should keep the Constitution we have, or toss it and begin again.
At the opening night performance, Los Angeles high schooler Jocelyn Shek defended the “keep it” position, pitching lively arguments and scoring with the audience, who were encouraged to applaud or boo vigorously. (She alternates with LA actor/debater Emilyn Toffler.) Heidi argues with a Jefferson quote, “The dead should not govern the living.” Jocelyn counters by asking why Heidi is quoting “the dead” to make her point. Her counterargument is that the Constitution we have is a valuable “tool” we need right now—and that abolishing it would create chaos. One audience member is chosen to represent the audience in “voting” for one side or the other.
No, we won’t say what happened. But for me, as tempting as the idea of a do-over sounded at first, Schrek’s play had me thinking thoughts (none too pleasant) about the state legislators, national politicos, interest groups and others who would jump in eagerly to work on a New American Constitution. Ummm…
The play’s ideas, arguments, and humor all landed with extra impact in this first-year remembrance of the January 6th events of last year…in a state with a pending abortion ban…in a country where justices feel more one-party by the day.
Just one woman’s opinion.
If you want to test your views against those of a fine American playwright, buy a ticket to What the Constitution Means to Me. Citizens, all, we have the right to judge our Constitution not just by its impact on the nation—but on our lives, and the lives of everyone we love.
