What The Constitution Means To Me: Final Thoughts

Heidi Schreck's Obie Award-winning play, What the Constitution Means to Me, premiered on Broadway on March 31, 2019, and concluded its run in August 2019. The play was later adapted into a film, directed by Marielle Heller, which premiered on Amazon Prime on October 16, 2020.

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Heidi Schreck's personal story

As a teenager, Schreck was an enthusiastic supporter of the U.S. Constitution and would travel the country reciting its amendments and defending its virtues as part of the American Legion Oratorical Contest. She earned her college tuition by winning constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In the play, Schreck embodies her fifteen-year-old self, participating in Constitutional debate contests and giving speeches on what the Constitution meant to her.

Through harrowing personal stories and re-enacted debates, Schreck tests the Constitution's promises against its failures, revealing a document that is both powerful and flawed. She addresses themes such as women's rights, immigration, domestic abuse, and the history of the United States. Schreck shares intimate stories of how the Constitution failed to protect women in her family from violence and abuse. She also discusses her own experiences with abortion and sexual assault.

Schreck's writing is praised for its ability to draw the audience into the legalities of the Constitution, making them feel immediate, consequential, and personal. Her delivery is described as engaging and improvised, seamlessly blending warmth and humour with heartbreak.

The Fourteenth Amendment

The play "What the Constitution Means to Me" by Heidi Schreck explores themes such as women's rights, immigration, domestic abuse, and the history of the United States. One of the key aspects of the play is its deep dive into the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which discusses citizenship rights and what it means to be "American".

In addition, the amendment addresses voting rights for male citizens over the age of twenty-one. It states that when the right to vote in elections for choosing representatives or executive and judicial officers is denied or abridged, the basis of representation shall be reduced proportionally.

Through her play, Schreck explores how the Fourteenth Amendment and the broader Constitution have impacted her own life and the lives of the past four generations of women in her family, including her great-great-grandmother, who was a mail-order bride from Germany. By sharing personal stories and highlighting legal cases, Schreck offers a critical perspective on the pitfalls and failures of the Constitution in protecting women's rights and ensuring equality for all citizens.

Women's rights

The play What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck addresses themes of women's rights, immigration, domestic abuse, and the history of the United States. The play is partly autobiographical, with Schreck narrating her performance as her fifteen-year-old self, who earned her college tuition by winning constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In the play, Schreck embodies her teenage self to trace the impact of the founding document on her life and the lives of the past four generations of women in her family.

Schreck's great-great-grandmother, for example, was sent from Germany to Washington state in 1879 after being purchased from a catalogue by her future husband. She was eventually admitted to a mental hospital and died at the age of 36. Schreck also shares her own experience of getting an abortion in her 20s and fearing sexual assault during college. She discusses the abuse of her mother and grandmother, highlighting the pitfalls of the Constitution and its failure to protect women.

The play's discussion of women's rights was particularly pertinent to audiences in 2018 during the US Senate hearings to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Schreck's play never mentions Kavanaugh by name, but his "invisible judiciary presence" affirms her implicit arguments and deepest fears about the Constitution.

The play has received numerous accolades, including a nomination for Best Play in the 73rd Tony Awards and a finalist spot for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

In terms of women's rights more broadly, there have been ongoing efforts to enshrine equal rights for women in the US Constitution through the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The ERA is a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee equal rights for women. As of 2020, 38 states have ratified the ERA, but it is unclear if its protections for women will be added to the Constitution. The ERA has received bipartisan support and is seen as a way to empower Congress to address systemic biases and create a social framework to acknowledge and address gender and economic inequity.

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The play's impact

Heidi Schreck's What the Constitution Means to Me is a play that has had a profound impact on audiences and critics alike. It premiered on Broadway in 2019 at the Hayes Theater, with Schreck herself in the leading role. The play is based on Schreck's own story of how, as a 15-year-old, she travelled the country competing in constitutional debates to earn scholarship money for college.

In the play, Schreck embodies her teenage self to trace the profound impact of the founding document on not just her own life, but also on the lives of the past four generations of women in her family, starting with the first to set foot in America: a mail-order bride. Through this lens, Schreck addresses themes such as women's rights, immigration, domestic abuse, and the history of the United States. She also includes a deep dive into the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which discusses citizenship rights and what it means to be "American".

The play has been described as "timely" and "galvanizing", and it received numerous accolades, including a nomination for Best Play in the 73rd Tony Awards and a finalist spot for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote that Schreck's show "never mentions [Brett] Kavanaugh by name. But his invisible judiciary presence is there, affirming many of her implicit arguments, which are often indistinguishable from her deepest fears about a document with which she has had a long and complicated relationship."

The play has also been adapted into a film, directed by Marielle Heller and released on Amazon Prime Video in 2020. The film captures the final weeks of its 2019 Broadway run and has been praised for its thoughtfulness, elegance, and frank yet gentle approach. In spite of everything, the film possesses a bright flare of optimism.

Overall, What the Constitution Means to Me has had a significant impact on audiences and critics, sparking important conversations about the United States Constitution and its relevance today.

Critical acclaim

Heidi Schreck's play What the Constitution Means to Me received critical acclaim and numerous accolades. The play premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop in 2018 and later transferred to Broadway in 2019. It received two Tony Award nominations, including Best Play, and was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The New York Times hailed the play as "not just the best play to open on Broadway so far this season, but also the most important." Ben Brantley of The New York Times also commented: "More artistic choice could have been taken in the production of the play; but the whirlwind, all-in-one-breath nature of the play echoes the feeling of desperation that permeates Schreck's storylines." The Pulitzer Prize committee described the play as: "A charming and incisive analysis of gender and racial biases inherent to the U.S. Constitution that examines how this living document could evolve to fit modern America."

Critic Sara Holdren wrote in New York Magazine that the play is a "brilliantly crafted show, harrowing and funny and humane, that accesses the political through the deeply personal." The play's discussion of women's rights seemed especially pertinent to audiences in 2018, in light of the then-ongoing U.S. Senate hearings to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The play has been described as "hilarious, hopeful, and achingly human." It traces the impact of the Constitution on four generations of women in Schreck's family, exploring how the United States' founding principles are linked with personal lives. It also includes a deep dive into the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which discusses citizenship rights and what it means to be "American". Schreck addresses themes such as women's rights, sexual assault, domestic abuse, and immigration, as well as the history of the United States.

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