HISTORY LESSON
‘Constitution’ play looks at history and future of Founding Fathers’ vision
Heidi Schreck gave birth to twin girls about a year and a half ago. That meant the playwright and actress had to let one of her other children go into the world without her.
Schreck’s award-winning “What the Constitution Means to Me,” which debuted in June 2017 and was on Broadway nearly two years later, is now on the road — but not with Schreck in the leading role, as she has been for much of its tenure. Cassie Beck is the lead orator in the production — which, as the title indicates, is a provocative and scholarly rumination on the Constitution of the United States. But Schreck acknowledges she’s still being a bit of a helicopter parent to the show.
“It's kind of a tremendous give,” Schreck, 50, says from her home in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood. “We're in constant contact during the tour. Little changes are made daily, depending on what's going on in the country or in the world. So I'm still on top of it.”
But Schreck is comfortable with having Beck stand in her place and put her own stamp on “Constitution,” which was nominated for a Tony Award (Best Play and Schreck as Best Actress) and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
“I've known Cassie for a long time,” Schreck says. “We've worked together before. She's been in my plays, and I worked with her very closely, rehearsing this part. To have this great artist, and my friend, out there telling the story, doing what I can't do at the moment, it's wonderful.”
Schreck's fascination with the Constitution began as a teenager, when she was growing up in Washington state and took part in a constitutional speech contest.
“It really helped me grow up, doing these speeches all four years of high school,” Schreck recalls. “(‘Constitution') really started with just that seed. At that point I thought it could be anything. It could be a coming-of-age story, it could be a teenage love story, who knows.”
After years of writing and watching other theater pieces — with particular inspiration from W. David Hancock's 1998 play “The Race of the Ark Tattoo” — Schreck began homing in on “Constitution” as a mostly one-actor piece, building on those teenage speeches and examining the Constitution's history and evolution, using multimedia applications for both dramatic effect and perspective.
“Constitution” focuses particularly on the 14th Amendment's first section, “a very hard-hitting piece of text” that addresses citizenship rights and definitions. Each show ends with a discussion between Schreck — now Beck — and a high school debater about the Constitution's future, with the audience serving as the jury.
“Constitution” won Obie, Off-Broadway Alliance and New York Drama Critics' Circle awards, and an Amazon Prime Video movie version premiered in October 2020.
Schreck has performed it for all manner of audiences over the years, including politicians, constitutional law scholars and the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg — who was happy to provide notes on her thoughts.
“I was terrified to perform in front of her,” Schreck says. “She asked for a copy of the script, and a couple days later I received a manila envelope with a letter thanking me and giving me two suggestions … and backup for her suggestions, which I was so honored to receive. And getting to then go visit her in her office and speak to her and ask her questions was definitely one of the highlights of this journey.”
The “Constitution” journey, of course, is a living one, with current events — such as the Supreme Court's latest considerations of Roe v. Wade — making a real-time impact on the play.
“It is a living, breathing thing, like the document itself,” Schreck notes. “The text doesn't have to change very much for it to be conversant with what's going on.”
The main question asked — but not entirely resolved — by “Constitution” is whether the document as written in 1787 and modified sporadically since it went into effect two years later, remains relevant in the 21st century. Schreck has studied many other constitutions, both antique and contemporary, and remains ambivalent in her own outlook.
“I would count myself in some ways among those people who revere it, although I have a lot of questions,” Schreck says. “We have such an old constitution, and it's caused me to start to question, ‘Why do we revere it so much, and is there another possibility? What would it be like to imagine a new document for this country?'
“I think it's inspiring to have that conversation, and necessary — although it's hard to imagine having a constitutional convention in our country at the moment and find any kind of consensus.”