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What the Constitution Means to Me
What
the Constitution Means to Me
By Ron Cohen
It could be
described as a civics lesson disguised as a play…or vice versa. Or it could be
called a personal family memoir, relating the years of domestic violence and
disparagement endured by women, abuse and inequality tacitly supported or
ignored by the Constitution. At the same time, it’s a Constitution fan letter,
pointing out how interpretation of the founding document and its amendments
made such things as birth control and abortion legal.
But whatever
else it is, What the Constitution Means
to Me is an extraordinary piece of theatre, so relevant or woke – as the
kids say – it can just about blow your mind.
Performer-writer
Heidi Schreck bounds on stage at the start, a fireball of energy and good
humor, infectiously eager to share her writing -- and her life. She tells us
that at age 15 she traveled the country giving speeches about the Constitution
in oratory contests sponsored by the American Legion, winning enough money with
her speechifying and debating to pay for her college education.
She then goes
on to recreate one of those speech-giving sessions at the American Legion Hall
in Wenatchee, Washington, her rural home town, which as she tells us, is “The
Apple Capital of the World.” The ambiance is well established by the set,
designed by Rachel Hauck, a formal-looking red-carpeted stage surrounded by
walls covered with rows of photos of Legion members.
In her
speech, Schreck says the Constitution is like a witch’s cauldron…a “pot in
which you put many different ingredients and boil them together until they
transform into something else.” Furthermore, a witch’s cauldron is a crucible,
“a severe test…of patience and belief.” The framers of the Constitution didn’t
get everything right, she continues, but that’s what amendments are for. And
Schreck turns to Amendment Nine as “the most magical and mysterious.” It says,
“The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed
to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Amendment
Nine, Schreck declares, is “amazing. The Constitution doesn’t tell you all the
rights you have…because it doesn’t know… It acknowledges that who we are now
may not be who we will become. It leaves a little room…for the future self?”
As you might
suspect, things are becoming a little deep, a little complex, and they only get
deeper and more complex as the young speech-maker goes on, often stretching
time as she interpolates into her narrative things that happened to her later
in her life. When as part of the contest, she is required to extemporaneously
discuss another amendment, she is given Amendment 14, which, she exclaims, “is
like a giant, super-charged force field protecting all of our human rights.”
Among its
various clauses, it states: “Nor shall any State deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law.” This, Schreck says, is “the
heart of the 1973 Supreme Court Case Roe v. Wade,” giving a woman “the right to
decide what to do with her own body.” And she goes on to tell us the details
surrounding the abortion she had six years after her debating contests.
“I got
pregnant while playing Miss Julie at a tiny theater in
When Schreck
gets to the clause in Amendment 14 stating “No state shall deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,“ Schreck breaks
totally away from her portrayal of her younger self: “I can’t talk about this
clause as a 15-year-old. I can’t—I just want to be myself now, all the time. I
want to be an adult woman in my 40s.”
Violence
against women is the focal point here. Without citing sources but with fierce
credibility, Schreck spits out the statistics: “Three women are murdered every
day in this country by their male partners; Ten million American women live in
violent households.”
In 1984,
Schreck relates, lawyers attempted for the first time to use the Equal
Protection Clause to address the problem. But then in 2005, the amendment was
invoked again in a case of domestic violence, Castle Rock v. Gonzales, when a
woman sued her local police for failure to act when her violent husband
kidnapped their three daughters, daughters he murdered the next morning. The
case went to the Supreme Court where it ruled that police did not have a
constitutional duty to protect this woman and her children. As Schreck
explains, much hinged on the interpretation of the word “shall,” that “shall”
as in “the police shall protect” does not mean “must,” and we hear an actual recording
of the Supreme Court judges musing over this.
“Feminist
legal scholars have called this the death of the Fourteenth Amendment for women
and children,” Schreck says. “It set a precedent that essentially says women
have no Constitutional right to be protected from violent partners. The ruling
is most devastating for women of color and queer and non-binary and transfolx,
people who are less likely to be helped by police than I am.”
Making the
argument personal, Schreck tells us her mother, her grandmother, her
great-grandmother and most likely, her great-great-grandmother -- who was
purchased as an immigrant from
In contrast
to the Gonzales case, Schreck says, “The police showed up for my grandma. It
was a small town. She was white.” At the
trial, though, her grandmother refused to testify against her husband. “My mom
did it, at age 14. Her stepfather went to prison for ten years. Which is
probably why I can be here now, telling you these stories.”
As the
actress moves through this panorama of stories and legal explanations, she
sometimes pauses, caught up in emotion. But other moments – many other moments
-- are lightened by Schreck’s seemingly irrepressible sense of humor.
Photos
by Joam Marcus
The
performance also takes on a Pirandello-like quality when the actor, Mike
Iveson, portraying the American Legion member moderating the debate, drops
character and tells us about the actor, delineating incidents from his life as
a gay man.
The show’s
documentary, semi-spontaneous feel is capped when Schreck brings on stage a
young female who in real life is a debater. “When I was working on this
recreation,” Schreck tells us, “I decided to meet young women who are doing
these kinds of contests today. I wanted to find out what they are thinking
about the Constitution. And I invited one of these brilliant young women to
join us here tonight.”
The spot is
filled by two women, appearing on different nights. At the performance
attended, it was Thursday Williams, whose program bio tells us that she has
done a variety of debates at
Schreck and
Williams debated the proposition that the Constitution should be abolished. The
arguments on both sides were persuasive. It was pointed out that some countries
have remade their constitutions into “positive rights” documents specifically
stating the rights that citizens are entitled to, as opposed to the “negative”
nature of the U.S. Constitution, which does not always delineate the rights
that cannot be taken away, leaving things open to interpretation, with final
say coming from the Supreme Court. (You can start worrying there.)
However, the
upbeat takeaway from the debate was that the Constitution is a document that
binds this diverse nation together, that it can be changed, and that it’s up to
the citizens to actively participate to bring about beneficial change.
It’s a lot to
absorb in an evening of theater, but under the seamless, fairly invisible
direction of Oliver Butler, Schreck, like Mary Poppins, makes it go down easily
with lots of spoonfuls of well-told personal recollection, clarity and humor.
In addition, booklet copies of the Constitution are handed out for our further
edification.
Review posted
October 2018
Off-Broadway
play
Playing at
New York Theatre Workshop
212-460-5475
nytw.org
Playing until
October 28
|
