What the Constitution Means to Me Review (Film, 2020)
content warning: foul language, reproductive rights (discussed), violence against women (discussed)
What the Constitution Means to Me is a proshot of the Broadway play What the Constitution Means to Me. Heidi Schreck is the writer and star of the play. She recounts her experience competing in public speaking competitions about the United States Constitution. She steps back in time to recreate one of these competitions, then takes it further to expand upon her teenage interpretations of the Constitution, 9th Amendment, and 14th Amendment as a woman living in the United States.
The most remarkable trick of What the Constitution Means to Me is turning a very traditional one-person play driven by personal narrative into something more unpredictable and lively. Most of the show is performed by Schreck. There are other actors who exist as part of the narrative. The moderator of the speech competition and, eventually, another competitor in a debate. Their interactions shape the sense of time in the play. If the moderator is ringing the bell, raising the time card, or chastising the audience, we’re back at the regional finals where Heidi is 15 years old. If he’s frozen in place, Heidi is an adult talking to the audience about her connection to the Constitution.
The dramatic structure works. This is one of my favorite plays I ever had the opportunity to see on Broadway. The combination of Schreck’s writing, Schreck’s performance, Oliver Butler’s direction, and Rachel Hauck’s set design make for an explosive experience onstage.
A director on this kind of show offers outside perspective on how to best convey the meaning of a play written by the actor starring in it. Butler’s approach is simple and to the point. The additional characters enter through the center aisle of the audience or the stage right wing. Schreck moves to specific parts of the stage for different areas of the story. When she’s getting ready to compete, she’s sitting in a chair upstage center-right. When she’s competing, she moves to the podium center stage and has very specific gestures and diction (emphasizing alliteration in the speeches). When she’s discussing the Constitution as an adult speaking in the present, she’s much looser in her movements and stays downstage right. When she’s stepping away from a direct exploration of the Constitution, she crosses downstage center and moves around like a standup comic. She eventually breaks those rules by removing her jacket and announcing all bets are off. It’s very subtle language to maintain the separation of time and the rules of the contest and it adds so much clarity to opening sequence of the play.
Rachel Hauck’s set design is the visual manifestation of Schreck’s childhood memories of the competition. It’s a unit set of an American Legion hall. Think wood paneling, faded red carpeting, easy to clean furniture, and flags standing on the floor. The walls are lined with large black and white portraits of men. They are members of the Legion. They are in perfectly pressed suits wearing their matching hats in identical black frames with white matting. Schreck mentions the barely lit audience of older white men judging her, a teenage girl, on her interpretation of the Constitution; the photos are a floor to ceiling wall of older white men staring at Schreck and the audience, judging us for even being there at all. Schreck also asks the audience to assume the role of the old white men judging her speeches in the competition, literally surrounding herself in her memory of what the competitions feels like.
Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) directs the proshot of What the Constitution Means to Me. She easily crosses that boundary of making a stage play feel alive onscreen. Heidi Schreck is magnetic onstage. You can’t take your eyes off of her. She radiates this incredible energy that easily translates to the screen. Heller’s focus shifts to match the direction of the show. There are static wide shots when the contest is happening, reflecting the rules and order. It becomes freer, but still controlled, when Schreck speaks as an adult on the issues. When the story spins to related topics, the camerawork is done by hand, following Schreck’s every move from multiple angles, matching the constant movement and flow of ideas in the narrative.
The draw of What the Constitution Means to Me is Schreck’s masterful writing. Every idea, every shift in tone, every metaphor and story and diversion from the subject of the Constitution is planned until it’s intentionally not. The text is conversational, except for when Schreck is quoting prepared writing. The original device of a teenager reciting her competitive speeches and drilled responses shifts to an adult reading specific news articles and court decisions off of index cards handed to her by the moderator of the contest. She uses archival audio clips of Supreme Court cases to provide additional context for her interpretations. These arguments are, naturally, provided by men, until they’re not.
The driving thesis of What the Constitution Means to Me is the lack of entrenched protections for women in the laws of the United States. Schreck hints at it when discussing the 14th Amendment in the competition. She’s quickly corrected by the moderator to avoid discussing the 19th Amendment or even the section of the 14th Amendment that specifies specific rights for “male” people. It only grows from there. This is a play about the unintended consequences of excluding people by nature of gendered language in law. The proshot is a riveting and engaging recording of what I consider one of the most important pieces of contemporary theatre in the United States.
What the Constitution Means to Me is streaming on Amazon Prime.
