What the Constitution Means to Me
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Center Theatre Group
Through February 28
RECOMMENDED:
In attendance last Friday at What the Constitution Means to Me, Heidi Schreck’s droll insightful play directed by Oliver Butler at the Mark Taper Forum, I had the rare experience of bonding with the rest of my fellow audience members. Here we were, Americans (most, I wager, of the progressive persuasion) living in Los Angeles in 2020, listening to a play about the U.S. Constitution at a time when our identity and faith in our country is in unimaginable crisis. I’d been seized with a similar sensation of bonding when I attended Hamilton a couple of years back, mesmerized by the story of a brilliant fallible man, an immigrant, whose fate intertwined with the birth of our republic. This time the sensation was not as powerful or vivid — but it certainly was there. Schreck’s quasi-autobiographical piece lacks the breadth and brilliance of Lin-Manuel’s extraordinary musical and it goes on too long, but it’s nevertheless witty and on point as it explores the disconnect between our naïve hopes as citizens, nourished in our schoolrooms, and today’s bizarre and frightening reality.
Thirty years ago, the playwright was a 15-year-old high school student living in Wenatchee, Washington in the eastern part of the state when she developed into a zealous advocate for the United States Constitution. Encouraged by her mom, she began participating in debates sponsored by the American Legion, where teenage contestants were asked to weigh in on that seminal document and relate their discourse to some personal element in their lives.
Schreck won most of those contests, garnering enough money to put herself through college. Gradually, however, her views evolved, as her adult self began re-evaluating the document’s worth in the light of her own experience and those of the women in her family.
This touring production features Maria Dizzia, assuming the role that Schreck has played (on Broadway and in other venues) since 2017 — that of a funny, articulate middle-aged woman charting her evolution toward political dissent. Dizzia’s warmth and charisma are palpable from the start. Even seated toward the back of the mid-sized Taper, I felt as if this clever, unpretentious person was speaking directly to me.
The debate, which takes place in a room whose walls are lined with photos of legionnaires, is overseen by a dorky vet played by Mike Iveson (though he later sheds this persona and morphs into himself, confiding, at Maria’s behest, some of his own personal story). At some point, the flashbacks to this idealistic young polemicist circa the 1980s segue to other tales — the narrator’s difficult experience seeking out an abortion as a 21-year-old in her “abortion-free” community in eastern Washington state, and tales about the women in her family who suffered physical abuse from their spouses and whose lives were never ever their own. Her great-grandmother, for example, was a mail order bride from Germany who suffered “melancholia” and died in mental institution when she was 36. And her grandmother Bea, her mom’s mom, was abused by her husband and developed “Battered Woman Syndrome,” which led her to deny that the abuse was taking place.
The question playwright Schreck poses through these stories, which are intermingled with historical exposition and information about constitutional amendments is: Patriotic rhetoric aside, what is the actual value of the Constitution, which was written in the late 18th century by and for propertied white males, the only people then deemed eligible to vote? How well, or how poorly, does this 230-year-old document serve the rest of us — women, immigrants, people of color, the poor (but in particular women!)? And what about questions that have emerged from circumstances never foreseen by these privileged founding fathers in their ironclad insular world — specifically a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body and her future.
About two thirds into the piece, Maria introduces Rosdely Ciprian, a contemporary teenage debater doing the circuit much as Heidi did 30 years earlier. Maria and Rosdely then launch into a master debate on whether the Constitution as we know it should be preserved or shelved, with the audience, encouraged to cheer or boo, as the final judge.
Now I imagine there are people for whom the mere thought of such descant is enough to make their eyelids droop. They should not be dissuaded by preconceived notions. As playwright, Schreck has filtered her personal journey of discovery into a vital work that challenges us to consider our heritage as Americans — to preserve the good and discard the bad. And she offers it up to us with an abundant supply of humor and humanity that unequivocally drives her message home.
The Mark Taper Forum at The Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., Downtown L.A.; Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 p.m.; Sun., 1 p.m. & 6:30 p.m.; no Mon. performances; no public performances Tues., Feb. 11 & Wed., Feb. 12; through Feb. 28. (213) 628-2772 or www.centertheatregroup.org. Running time: one hour and 45 minutes with no intermission.
