The US Constitution - Equality for White Men by Hails Shager

 If you’ve ever wondered what you’d get when you mix a one-person play, a ted talk, and a stand up comedy special, wonder no more.  What The Constitution Means To Me was a beautiful amalgamation of all of those about, shockingly, what the constitution meant to the writer and performer, Heidi Schreck.  The audience journeyed back and forth with Heidi between her current and fifteen year old selves, as well as the difference in knowledge she had between those periods in her life about the theoretical and practical uses of the constitution.  On paper it sounds like a movie a government teacher would play when they didn’t want to teach, and although I would have loved it if I was shown this play in civics, I believe this is a required watch for all adult citizens of the United States.

The format for this play was a woman speaking directly to the audience about winning scholarship money from competing in American Legion debates about the constitution, acting out what she said as a fifteen year old and commenting on how her point of view has shifted since then with personal and familiar anecdotes.  The biggest focus of this play was women, and the ways they are and aren’t protected by the constitution.  The emotional vulnerability in Schreck’s voice when speaking about the ways the women in her family were failed by society and the constitution was robust and breathtaking.  As an easily distracted theatre-goer, I remained intrigued and attentive throughout the entire performance.  The timing of jokes, educational information, and emotional anecdotes was dispersed in the perfect way to hold my attention throughout.  

Although women were the main topic, Schreck’s first partner on stage was Mike Iveson, for the purpose of what Schreck described as having positive male energy on the stage along with her.  He originally represented a legionnaire who would often accompany Schreck to her contests as a teen, but his role switched midway through the show to speak about his own experience in America as a gay man.  At first his presence seemed out of place, as he doesn’t mention the constitution at all, and he’s talking about his male experience in a play about how women are impacted by the constitution.  But of course, in accordance with the structuralist literary theory, many things can be better understood when examining the opposite or lack of that thing.  The inclusion of a man who was also impacted by toxic masculinity in his life provided a more holistic view of masculinity.  

Near the end of the show, there were two very different attempts to include audience interaction.  One was a debate between Schreck and Rosdely Ciprian, a 14 year old debater, which the audience decided the winner of.  This was a captivating way to continue holding the audience’s attention.  The other attempt was a Q and A for Rosdely and Schreck with questions asked by the previous night’s audience.  This was a nice way to feel more connected with the performers, but by this point in the show, an addition like this that didn’t add any information about the topic felt unnecessary.  Overall however, the unique approaches to telling this story created a more powerful and memorable show.