Review: WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME at Ridgefield Theater Barn

Who says learning about history – American history in particular – can’t be entertaining as well as educational? Witness Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway juggernaut Hamilton, or, harking back a few deades, the Peter Stone musical 1776?

Heidi Schrek’s What the Constitution Means to Me is not a musical but it is written and presented with ample cleverness and earnestness to keep an audience fully engaged for its roughly 90 minutes (performed without intermission). That certainly was what I experienced at opening night of the current production at Ridgefield Theater Barn, where the show runs through Sunday, Feb. 15. 

These days, our national conversation is such that it’s rare to come across the word "Constitution" without it being immediately appended with the word “crisis.” In Ms. Schreck’s compelling and extremely timely telling, for women, the Constitituional crisis began pretty much as soon as the ink had dried on the original parchment. 

The throughline she navigates is the subjugation of women in American – and the world – since time immemorial, right up until today. 

Yes, the author of this part-catechism/part-memoir has an agenda, and a very personal agenda at that (the show title is best appreciated by inflecting a pronounced emphasis on “Me”). 

WIthin the framework of discussing specific articles and amendments in the document, she amplifies the extent to which our country always has been a patriarchy. As she says of her grandmother, there have been “Centuries of laws that explicitly told her she was worthless.” Her family history is pockmarked by what she labels hereditary melancholia, a depressive condition that was poisonously fed by relentlessly abusive men and endlessly abused women in the Schreck lineage. Her genealogy is a drama unto itself, if not at times a horror show. 

As someone who was debating the merits – and, notably, demerits – of the Constitution since she was 15, Ms. Schrek has had ample time – a large portion of her lifetime – to collect the facts she wields effectively, gracefully and often humorously, not unlike the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove.  

The theatrical conceit with which she makes her case is to recreate the debates she was a whiz at, as a teenager who competed in American Legion contests. Her mastery was such that her repeated winnings, as she was barnstorming away from her Washington State home, helped pay for her college tuition. Fittingly, in the program’s director’s note, Nancy Limbacher Meyer pays homage to her father, Richard, who was a Legionaire – and  she readily acknowledges he “would have disagreed with a lot” of what is said on stage, but “would have been thrilled his beloved American Legion was the catalyst for the conversation.”  

That helps explain why this production, under Ms. Meyer’s directorial baton, has a palpable feel of authenticity and passion. Even the diorama simulating an American Legion hall is convincing enough, as designed by the crack RTB Team, using props from Ridgefield American Legion Post #78. (One of the hallmarks of this superbly run theater is how closely intertwined it is with the highly supportive surrounding community.) 

While the play is all about the Constitution, it also is all about Heidi Schreck’s – and every woman’s – tenuous connection to that document (or lack thereof). It’s a fraught and frayed relationship that could be summed up by calling women second-class citizens, save for the fact that in the document, there is only one gender acknowledged and valued as citizens. As Heidi informs us, of the 4,700 words in the Constitution, the word “woman” appears … never.  

Another stark fact served is that “SInce 2000, more women have been killed by male partners than have died in the war on terror, including 9/11.” 

Ms. Schreck is a self-taught constitutional scholar of sorts, which comes through in her parsing the language in such long-debated amendments as 9 (what rights do we have?) and 14 (birthright citizenship). She also has a keen eye and ear for what constitutes savvy dramaturgy: she has structured the narrative in several layers to keep it moving forward with alacrity and theatricality. (Am Wyckoff is listed as Dramaturgy Consultant.)

Actor Ann Alford is splendid portraying Heidi, winning us over the moment she enters through the audience and takes command of the stage and the house. The same goes for Timothy Huber, who plays the Legionnaire monitoring the competition. He is instantly likable while exerting just the right amount of authority as befits his supervisory role, and smoothly portrays other characters in Heidi’s life.

Ms. Alford at first portrays the 15-year-old Heidi, then later reverts to present-day, fortysomething Heidi and, finally, towards the conclusion, presents as the actor named Ann playing Heidi. In all three iterations, she’s a winner, conveying a generosity of spirit toward the audience, if not toward, say, certain justices of the Supreme Court.

In the second part of the show, we meet a real-life student Debater, not unlike Heidi was herself at 15. Zoe Guaman is a ninth-grader at Stamford High School who debates adult Heidi. When the two contestants thrust and parry their opposing views of the Constitution, it’s a humdinger that’s a lot of fun for the audience, which is invited at the outset by the Legionnaire to be freely demonstrative in reacting to whatever is being said that they agree or disagree with. Director Alford couldn’t have cast the Debater any better than what the forceful and ingratiating Ms. Guaman brings to the role.   

Another layer of theatricality are two recording excerpts of actual discussions among Supreme Court justices decades ago as they were ruling on birth control and women’s rights, highlighted by a noteworthy difference of opinion over whether the word “shall” means “should” or “must.” Once again, it does not end well for women. 

So, is What the Constitution Means to Me a political tract? No doubt some in any of its audiences wherever it is performed will see it that way. Yet, what is undeniable is that the “Me” of the title comes to the barricades armed with a welter of facts, including anecdotes from her family tree that help explain who she is and why she has grown into an erudite and fierce advocate for the rights of her gender – rights which, she points out, have been exceedingly hard to achieve throughout our nation’s history, and eons further back into world antiquity. 

As for the role the Supreme Court has played through the decades in granting or denying rights to women, Ms. Schreck shares another audio excerpt, courtesy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Asked when there would be enough women sitting on the court to finally extend to her gender the level of justice equal to what men have historically enjoyed, RBG pithily replied, “When there are nine.” 

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