Maddy Merrill

What the Constitution Means to Me

In the play ​What the Constitution Means to Me​ by Heidi Schreck the audience is asked to

explore their knowledge of this historical document as well as evaluate its shortcomings and

relevance to today. Schreck does this by revisiting her childhood speaking competitions where

she was tasked with explaining how the Constitution impacted her life. She goes in and out of

time, sometimes speaking to the audience as her current self, other times dipping back into the

past in varying degrees. She speaks of her family, using anecdotes like the abuse her mother

faced from her stepfather, and she speaks of herself, referencing what it was like to be a young

woman and pregnant—to be part of the first generation of women in her family to have access to

an abortion. She ends with a debate, with one side arguing to abolish the Constitution, and the

other claiming it should be kept. The style of the play is a shock at first. It almost seems that

Schreck is improvising, gauging the room, making us laugh, and drawing us in. The humor

counteracts the actual depth of the message and the intention of the play: to make the audience

consider the importance of the Constitution today.

Schreck’s political goal is to reintroduce the audience to a document they may not have

considered for years and show them the faults that it still contains. The performance helps her

make the case by telling personal stories that are interwoven with humor. The play doesn’t feel

like a history lesson or a tirade on political conditions today (although some current issues were

cleverly slipped in). Instead, through jokes and stories, Schreck gradually reveals her own

opinions, and most of the time the audience is inclined to agree. While it does appear that she has

many qualms with the 1787 document, the play isn’t completely persuasive. The pros and cons

of the Constitution are both thoroughly examined, sometimes through the metaphor of a
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penumbra which Schreck carries all the way through the performance. She explains that while

the Constitution in theory illuminated new issues, it left others in the shadows. This idea often

applies to women’s rights, and can be illustrated by the nineteenth amendment which gave

women the right to vote but failed to do other things like encourage their engagement in

government or close the pay gap. Schreck was overall very effective at highlighting the faults of

the Constitution and making the audience consider how it is being used today. When Rosdely

Ciprian, a high school freshman and debater from New York, comes out to engage with Schreck

about the relevance of the document, audience members are given an opportunity to evaluate

their own perspectives. Mike Iveson, who had been portraying a legionnaire, explains that

viewers should applaud when they hear something they agree with in the debate and boo when

they don’t. This interactive style, which pretty much obliterated the fourth wall, was to me the

most powerful portion of the play. It demanded that the audience finally consider all the

information presented over the past few hours to make their own decision. There was no way to

avoid thinking about the Constitution in the frame of today’s world during the final minutes of

the play which was an extremely effective strategy.

The performance helps Schreck make arguments about the Constitution by using the veil

of a “character.” Even though Schreck is basically herself up on stage, she creates distance

between theater and reality by taking on a role. Sitting in the audience I perceived her as more

objective than I would have if she didn’t play at least some kind of a role, which helped build

credibility and avoid a tone of accusation. You might think that this use of “character” would

make the performance seem more theatrical and the message less urgent, but that wasn’t the

reality. What I found on the other hand was that by choosing to create a play, Schreck could
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reach a wider audience and teach them something without them even realizing it. This is the

experience I had. During the play, I laughed along as Schreck spoke of her Greek crying and her

love for pop stars of the past (most of whose names I didn’t recognize), but when I walked out of

the Kennedy Center I was actually thinking and discussing the value of the Constitution,

something I hadn’t done since 10th grade government class. Another advantage of using a

“character” was that it allowed the realistic manipulation of time. Playing her younger self gave

Schreck the chance to evaluate the time period in which she grew up and then step into the

present as her “very late 40s” self. The audience sees how the times have changed, from new

laws being created to a greater sense of equality, but is also reminded of how much hasn’t. For

example, Schreck repeatedly brings up the Equal Rights Amendment which shockingly still has

not been passed. This point among others underline a central idea of the play: that while

“progress” has supposedly been made in the United States on multiple fronts, our governing

document remains virtually the same. Yes, the Constitution is a living document, but it’s the will

of the people that give it a heartbeat.