Women in Theatre’s Topical Political Play: What the Constitution Means to Me
Women in Theatre (WIT) Nashville have chosen a perfectly topical play for November in an election year: Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me. It was a 2019 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, had a limited run on Broadway, and a video recording of the play is available on Amazon Prime as well.
Going into the show I wondered if it would hold my attention; I love history, but I’ve never been particularly interested in our founding documents or legal system (except for when I was ten and National Treasure came out). The play did hold my attention and sparked curiosity. The writing is entertaining and interesting. Historical anecdotes and mentions made me curious to learn more; besides learning more about each amendment, I now want to learn more about Asa Mercer shipping women from the east coast to Seattle, historical legal restrictions against prosecuting men who abuse their wives, the history of access to contraception, and more. Educationally, toward the end of the show pocket constitutions were handed out.
The play is personal, the playwright Heidi Schreck having originally played the starring role. The script has been slightly tweaked for performances with other actresses playing the role, as is the case here in Nashville. There are two acts. In the first Heidi speaks to the audience about her 15-year old self, who toured American Legion halls across the US in 1989 to earn money for college by competing in debates and giving speeches about the constitution. Sometimes she is her present-day self, a middle-aged woman, and sometimes she’s acting as her teenage self. The legionnaire who moderates the speeches in her memories changes character partway through to a version of Heidi’s real-life friend, becoming Mike, a gay man who discusses his experience of social pressure and violence over his sexual identity.
The second act is much shorter, being a debate then a Q&A between Heidi and a teenager. The debate is over whether we should keep or abolish the constitution. In the original play, this teenage debater alternated between several different local high school students and the debate was unique to each performance. In WIT’s show this role is played by the same teen each performance. After the debate, a member of the audience gets to choose whether to keep or abolish the constitution. I saw the show November 9th, and a coin flip determined that Heidi argued for keeping and the teen argued for abolishing the document. The audience member chose to keep the constitution, and so we got to keep our pocket copies of the constitution (my sister and I were hyped about this). The debate was interesting and we were encouraged to be vocal, cheering or booing when points were made. I understand why the playwright chooses to debate a high schooler in this play, but it makes the debate slightly lopsided: an adult has such an advantage over a teenager.
The big focus of the play, told through both discussions of the constitution and through topical personal stories, is the place of women in the document. The great focus is on the 14th Amendment; I was rather surprised that so little time was spent on suffrage or Roe v. Wade, but the influence of the 14th amendment is incredibly influential in so many following cases, especially ones involving civil rights. Time is spent clarifying the difference between negative and positive rights, the conclusion of the play being that we have far too few positive rights, and that changes should be made. This woman-focused view of the constitution makes Mike’s personal monologue feel somewhat out-of-place. Possibly his story is to emphasize the presence of heterosexual male violence throughout history, or to give a brief non-female view. While well-written and very well delivered, I did have to wonder what difference it would make if this segment had never been part of the show.
The play uses a few historic audio clips to emphasize various points. After a discussion of legalized abuse through history, we hear a clip from the 2005 supreme court case of Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales. A woman sued the police after they refused to respond to the kidnapping of her three daughters, who were then murdered. The audio clip from that trial has two justices discussing whether or not the word “shall” meant “shall,” before ruling against the woman. Showing such callous quibbling in this tragic case is impactful. Another clip, from Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case discussing the legality of birth control, is highly entertaining, the brief clip ridiculously full of embarrassed coughs as the elderly men awkwardly discussed contraception. Other than these and a few other audio clips, there is no music.
Since WIT is performing this at the Darkhorse Theater, an intimate space, they don’t use microphones for the performance. I appreciate this choice by Director Abby Waddoups: instead of the inevitable auditory awkwardness of unnecessary microphones, the actors project so naturally that it wasn’t until halfway through the performance that I even noticed the sound quality.
The set design is good and simple, an amalgamation of different Legionnaire halls from Heidi’s past. There are a few tables and chairs, a podium, wood-paneled walls with some photos and decorations. The costumes are fitting. Heidi wears two different public-speaking outfits, the teen dresses as a contemporary teen, and the gray-haired legionnaire wears a suit and hat, which he removes when he changes character to Mike, finally standing before us in his pants and an old Led Zeppelin T Shirt. His natural dark hair is revealed when he removes his hat, so his gray beard and temples form a fitting contrast to the hidden color.
Lindsey Patrick-Wright plays Heidi. The sheer amount of non-stop lines she delivers is impressive: I think in the duration of the play she speaks more than the average person speaks in several days. Her voice is strong and well-projected, and she maintains energy the entire time. Sometimes the role is conversationally personable, sometimes distraught, joking or solemn, and Patrick-Wright does well through it all. Thomas Wehby plays the Legionnaire/Mike, and his kindly older man persona is quietly funny and contrasts well with his vulnerability and intimacy as Mike. Pippy Patrick-Wesson is the teen debater and Lindsey Patrick-Wright’s real-life child. Their role doesn’t require an acted persona, but uses their own personality and words for the debate, revealing an outgoing and confident personality.
I left the show with a deeper respect for the Constitution as a document, and for all the incredible effort that has gone into amending the document for the better. I agreed with that night’s audience that we should keep the document. As Patrick-Wright pointed out in the debate, why would we trust our current politicians and lobbyists to do a better job? Necessary improvements should be future amendments. Agree or disagree with statements in the show, you’ll be intellectually stimulated and given a new appreciation for America’s legal documents and the battle made over them. As an Independent I find neither of our two major parties have a platform I can fully endorse, and just as I’d expected, the play is written from a liberal viewpoint and assumes that the audience fully agrees. However that assumption isn’t expressed in a malicious or contemptuous manner, which is quite refreshing in our current polarized climate.
WIT is a new organization and the night I attended had an undeservedly small audience. As more people learn about them and they continue to give well-chosen and well-performed productions, I expect their audience to grow!
This play was chosen to occur right after an especially tense presidential election. I doubt any attending the show had voted for Trump or hoped for his win. Mentions of the results were made in passing before the show, but there were no added remarks about him. At the Q&A at the end, an audience member wondered what we’re supposed to do after this election’s results. Linsdey Patrick-Wright responded by saying that we always have hope. She said that she’s been accused this week of being “cozy.” Her response to the idea that angry despair is somehow stronger or more virtuous than hope is wise: “Hope isn’t cozy. Hope is fire.”
WIT will perform What the Constitution Means to Me through November 16th at the Darkhorse Theater. For tickets and more information, see Women In Theatre Nashville.
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G E Tipton was born in Nashville and raised there and in Spring Hill. She graduated from MTSU in 2017 with a degree in German and a minor in piano performance. She spent three years in Boston before returning to Nashville in 2020. She is married and has a baby boy.
