It’s Time to Talk About the Constitution

Virtually every review of Heidi Schreck’s “What the Constitution Means to Me” mentions how timely it is. Over the course of the play’s nearly four years of performances ⁠ — beginning off-Broadway in 2017 before moving to increasingly large theaters and eventually the Great White Way and a national tour ⁠ — it was reviewed countless times, and a lot changed in politics over the years. But no matter what the political crisis was at the moment ⁠ — some of which now seem so miniscule ⁠ — it stayed timely.

I first read the play as a script back in 2020, and decided to return to it ⁠ — this time as a filmed version on Prime Video ⁠ — this past week because it felt, well, timely.

“What the Constitution Means to Me” isn’t technically a one-woman show (it briefly features two other performers) but it might as well be. In fact, it’s structured more like stand-up comedy, with Schreck weaving in and out of arguments, anecdotes, and hilarious punchlines. The meat of the show is centered around her time touring American Legion Halls at the age of 15 to give speeches about how much she loves the US Constitution in order to win scholarship money.

She recreates these speeches for us live, though “recreates” probably isn’t really the best word, as she also subtly imbues many of her modern-day feelings into these recreations. Repeatedly, she brings up the classic arguments for why so many clauses in the Constitution are important, then strategically satirizes that argument, poking holes in its foundation until it’s been almost completely dismantled.

In fact, over the course of the show’s nearly two hours, she masterfully dismantles much of this now 235-year-old document, focusing especially on how it has failed and continues to fail hundreds of millions of women and people of color.

I could go on for pages about how effective this show is. But honestly, it’s worth it to take the time to watch it on your own. It’s the perfect piece of art for this moment, especially if you’re feeling angry or in despair: Schreck is funny enough to distract you from those feelings and skillful enough to remind you why those feelings are so necessary.

What I will focus on instead is the existence of a play like this in the first place.

A common theme of the play is about how Schreck’s education taught her that the US Constitution was and is practically unimpeachable, an experience I’m sure many of us can relate to. Personally, I was fortunate enough to grow up taught by educators who were (generally) willing to have nuanced discussions about US history, politics, and nationalism. The one exception to that, though, was the Constitution, which even in college was preached as a work of pure genius. I was told that although it may have been flawed, its innovative republican design and ability to self-correct made it lasting and effective.

Just a few months ago, I was still making those same arguments. The “self-correcting” argument, in particular, was my favorite. I think I’ve repeated some version of “the beauty of this document is that it’s just vague enough to apply to every generation in a different way,” in numerous discussions. After the past few weeks of Supreme Court rulings ⁠ — especially the overturning of Roe v. Wade ⁠ — I’m not so sure that’s true anymore.

Schreck talks about Roe in “What the Constitution Means to Me.” She explains how the vagueness of the due process clause and fourth, fifth, and ninth amendments allowed for that right to be guaranteed. But she also warns that the same vagueness that allowed for Roe could allow for it to be overturned, which is exactly what happened.

In fact, as Schreck explains, we’re often taught about how the Constitution and its amendments have been used for progress and to guarantee people their rights. But there are just as many ⁠ — if not more ⁠ — instances in which that same language was used to do the opposite. A document that we’ve been told exists to protect the rights of the people so often has failed to do just that.

Schreck never explicitly argues for the Constitution to be abolished, but she does make one thing very clear: real, tangible change in the US will not come without at the very least heavily reforming the Constitution.

In 2017, that level of criticism was both radical and prescient. Now, it’s necessary. The overturning of Roe, along with so many other aspects of politics today, has made it abundantly clear that whatever argument you want to make, we need to start having open, critical, and nuanced discussions about the document that our entire political system is derived from.

Today is a great day to start those conversations, since, as a friendly reminder, the Declaration of Independence was quite literally a list of things wrong with the current political system.

This post was originally published in Cansler Culture, which you can subscribe to here.