A Play More Timely Today Than When it Premiered

What the Constitution Means to Me

If you were lucky enough to see the world premiere of Heidi Schrek’s What the Constitution Means to Me at the off-Broadway New York Theatre Workshop back in 2018, in its subsequent Broadway incarnation, or in the Prime Video special, be forewarned that the first Chicago-based production of the play currently onstage at the TimeLine Theatre Company is now a very different piece of work.   

No, Schrek’s script hasn’t appreciably changed.  Nor has the staging.  It is still, in effect, an autobiographical one-woman play — with the peripheral assistance of two other players — set in a single room in an American Legion Hall in Wenatchee, Washington.  

Nor is it a matter of the Chicago production being somehow less impressive than the original.  The TimeLine production, directed by Helen Young, is a polished piece of work, and Beth Lacke performs estimably as “Heidi,” the stage incarnation of the Heidi Schrek persona originally played by the playwright herself. 

Much of the play consists of a renactment by Schrek of her 15-year-old self traveling around the U.S. to compete in oratory contests sponsored by the American Legion on the topic of what, indeed, the Constitution means to her.  The charm, and the humor, came from the ironic disjunction between a teenager’s naive interpretation of what the Constitution could and should be and the painful reality of how far from that idealized vision our Constitution actually is.  In the original production, the present-day Schrek shone a glaring light on what the actual Constitution has, in the benighted past, meant for women, immigrants and enslaved persons, whose fates were considered irrelevant, if they were considered at all, by the Constitution’s framers.  But somehow, as the Prime Video description rather oddly claimed, the play nonetheless managed to come across as a “hilarious, hopeful, and achingly human show.” 

No, the play hasn’t changed at all.  But the world has.  And so, most likely, has the audience.  Back in 2018, when it premiered off-Broadway, audiences eagerly absorbed the play’s mixture of humor, irony and anger.  But those earlier performances took place in a world before a deeply divided Supreme Court voted to overrule Roe vs. Wade, imperiling other hard-fought victories that enabled same-sex marriage and unfettered access to contraceptives; before the attempted overthow of our duly elected government; before Donald Trump called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” that did not support his 2020 election lies; before Clarence Thomas and other Justices became embroiled in highly questionable personal relationships that smacked of influence peddling; and before confidence in the Supreme Court — the keeper of the Constitution, and its chief interpreter — sank to its lowest level in at least 50 years.  

Not much “hopefulness and hilarity” there. 

In short, what has changed is the context in which we absorb and understand the play’s alternately idealistic and deeply frustrating messages.  

My memory of seeing the original production of this play accords closely with the description of the play by the Pulitzer Committee, which named it as a finalist:  “A charming and incisive analysis of gender and racial biases inherent in the U.S. Constitution that examines how this living document could evolve to fit modern America.”

Well, that original production was charming, alright. But that charm is now largely lost in the miasma in which this nation currently finds itself.  It doesn’t mean the play is less worth seeing now; if anything, the power of external events has darkened the play’s message and deepened its resonance.

Beth Lacke’s incarnation of Heidi Schreck tells of her abortion when she was in her 20s, of the physical abuse suffered by her mother and grandmother at the hands of her grandfather, and most important, relates the riveting story of her great-great grandmother, a mail-order bride from Germany who bore 16 children , was likely beaten regularly, and was later confined to a mental institution for “melancholia” (a misleadingly poetic-sounding term for severe depression) and died at 36.  What does all this female suffering have to do with the Constitution?  Nothing, and that’s precisely the point.  The Constitution provides no protections for women against abuse — and in fact not only does not guarantee women the same rights as men, it doesn’t, anywhere in its text, mention women at all.

I remembered Schreck’s stories of the abuse of women solely as a sharp remonstrance to the naïveté of her 15-year-old self, and it is indeed that.  But now, instead of these stories being a sobering corrective to the play’s many moments of droll humor, they become the very crux of the play, and a lesson not only about a benighted past but also about a fraught present and a frighteningly possible future.  It is a rebuke to all of us, liberals and conservatives alike, who take the Constitution, and our freedoms, for granted.  Those who don’t walk away from this production feeling chastened and sobered — and this would include any idealistic 15-year-olds in the audience — will have missed the point of the play entirely, as I once did and as perhaps others including the Pulitzer Committee and Prime Video did as well. 

In the overwhelmingly liberal theatre community, a play like What the Constitution Means to Me will be well-received — and more deservedly so than the many contemporary plays that succeed because they pander to, or pull a guilt trip on, their left-leaning urban audiences.  But What the Constitution Means to Me doesn’t manipulate its audience like those plays do. Better yet, it is upfront about its particular perspective and its intentions — the title, after all, is “What the Constitution Means to ME.”  

Yet, at the same time, Schrek sticks closely to the text and the intent of the Constitution, even to the extent of passing out pocket-sized printed copies of the complete Constitution to every member of the audience.  

As far as those among us who might agree with where our Supreme Court is headed, this play will give them plenty to think about, and if a young member of the Federalist Society wants to write and produce a rejoinder focused on What the Constitution Means to Her, she is welcome to do so.  In fact, a genuine debate with a Federalist Society type would have been far more interesting and substantive than the gimmicky and scripted pseudo-debate that concludes What the Constitution Means to Me, where the question being stagily “debated” is whether we should “keep” or “abolish” the Constitution — an entirely absurd premise.  This awkward final segment, which includes a bit of perfunctory audience participation, diminishes some of the evening’s momentum but fortunately doesn’t vitiate the power of this piece of theatre that is more timely, more necessary and more powerful than ever. 

Highly Recommended 

Reviewed by Michael Antman 

Presented May 10 – July 12 by TimeLine Theatre Company at TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Avenue, Chicago.

Tickets are available at http://www.timelinetheatre.com or by calling 773-281-8463 x6.

Additional information about this and other Chicago area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.