Heidi Schreck’s deeply personal Broadway show, “What the Constitution Means to Me,” explored how the U.S. Constitution, seemingly abstract as it may be, had profoundly influenced the life of an American woman in her mid-40s, and not just because the teenaged Schreck had been obsessed with attending legions of debate contests probing its interpretation, helping her snag scholarships for college.
This show, which I first saw in 2019, made the point that everything about that document has ramifications for the lives of individual Americans. Through direct address and a theatricalized version of informality, we learn how the Constitution actually had intersected for decades with Schreck’s own experience in a rural West Coast family that had survived all manner of abuse at the hands of men. The piece is personal to the point of being confessional, but its brilliance — and this is a fantastic work of activist and feminist theater — is that it also universalizes the issues therein, and does so with an uncommon level of warmth and accessibility.
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Schreck understandably then wanted to convert her show, which must have been exhausting to perform, to something others could perform, rendering “Heidi” (and her sidekick, Mike Isaacson) as a character. The result was not ideal but workable, it turned out.
Thus the piece went out on tour and landed in Chicago with Marie Dizzia in March 2020, which turned to be the worst month to start a tour since days of the Black Plague. Dizzia was terrific and Isaacson stuck with the show, but it was closed in a matter of days. It returned in 2021 with Cassie Beck, but the momentum was sadly lost.
Fast forward to TimeLine Theatre on Wednesday night for the first local production of the work. That means not just a different actress and actor (Beth Lacke and Raymond Fox), but a new and more intimate production, as directed by Helen Young on a fresh-eyed setting from Jessica Kuehnau Wardell.
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You have to take this review as the work of someone seeing this piece for the fourth time. If you’ve never seen “Constitution” and you are interested in the Supreme Court and the impact of its decisions, it’s absolutely worth experiencing this production on Wellington Avenue in Lakeview. This is a really adroit piece of writing and unique in how it addresses its audience and explores the intersection of constitutional law and everyday life. On Broadway, it attracted big numbers of mothers and their teenaged daughters, something that delighted Schreck and was a fine thing for democracy. Nothing I’m saying below should discourage that, especially given this show’s educational power and also what has happened with the Supreme Court since 2019.
Nonetheless, I think this new production still has a ways to go: the main issue is that it is insufficiently confident and thus a tad chilly, muted, uncertain and pre-packaged. The trick here is to base things on the script (which could use an update now), but make it feel like the work has been ignited and that anything can happen, at this moment in this theater. At the performance I saw, the show had some cool new ideas but hadn’t fully self-animated; the production’s hesitancies are especially notable toward the end of the main part, which does not rise in stakes, vulnerability and tension as it could and should, so that the conclusion feels both tragic and hopeful.
By the coda, where the piece showcases a young debater (the terrific Makalah Simpson at the performance I saw), Lacke had found her way toward the right personal relationship with the audience. I’d give this piece a few more days to settle, interact with audiences and find its heart.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
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Review: “What the Constitution Means to Me” (3 stars)
When: Through July 2
Where: TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Tickets: $52-$67 at 773-281-8463 and timelinetheatre.com
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHAT
