Review: WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME at Soulpepper

What does the US Constitution mean to Canadians?

That question loomed large at Soulpepper when it programmed Heidi Schreck’s WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME, a riveting combination of civics lesson and personal family story that chronicles the writer’s high school experience at various American legions, participating in speech and debate contests about the foundational document to raise money for college. The play, here for a scant week and a half at a crucial time in American politics, is inextricably US-based, bursting at the seams with its writer’s staunch love for the country’s ideals and agonizing frustration with its failure to achieve them.

American news is inescapable here, and what happens in the US reverberates through the rest of the world, particularly in the countries that share its borders. Yet, if surprisingly few Americans truly understand their constitution, Canadians likely understand it even less. Fortunately, Schreck’s script, a hit in New York that made its way to Broadway in 2019, is extremely accessible and sprightly in its deconstruction of the mythic text. Shreck follows the directions her 15-year-old self receives to always make her arguments “personally relevant” for emotional impact, intertwining her complex matriarchal family history with the Constitution’s impact until its lines of legalese lie perpendicular to those of her family tree.

Eagerly sweeping onto the stage, actress Amy Rutherford as Schreck describes the set (no designer credited) as a sort of fantasy compilation of a Legionnaire’s hall, full of dull browns, the requisite American flag, and pictures of cherished white male veterans that stare at the audience through her presentation. That’s fine, she tells us, since our current role is also to be a bunch of white men staring back at the photos and at her as she cheerfully dons a pale yellow blazer that accentuates her all-American blonde hair.

At this hall in her native Wenatchee, Washington, “Heidi” sets up the concept of reenacting one of these speech competitions and then gradually commandeers the discussion, her opponent absent, the only restraint as she bubbles over about the “rugged” document coming from the timer wielded by an unnamed Legionnaire (Damien Atkins, looking like an overgrown, deadpan Boy Scout in Costume Designer Ellie Koffman’s military suit jacket and garrison cap).

The Legionnaire’s time limits become only a suggestion as we go back into Schreck’s matriarchal family history, from a great-great-grandmother who arrived in Seattle as a “good immigrant,” a German mail-order bride who proceeded to die in an asylum of melancholia at the age of 36, to the next generations of women who raised families with feminist ideals with one hand while enduring abuse on the other. In telling the family story, Rutherford often makes you forget she’s not actually the playwright, who has smartly rerouted the distancing effect by having “Heidi” read some of the more emotionally distressing stories off cue cards as though protecting herself from their full impact. The structure of the show also gives viewers an opportunity to detach, while its various parts hold out a series of hands to draw them back in when they’re ready.

Schreck’s script meaningfully and metaphorically explores the difference between negative and positive rights in the Constitution. Negative rights, she says, form much of the document, comprised of actions the government cannot perform, such as discriminate against groups. Negative rights often result in the primacy of inaction, the ideal state one of not doing anything at all. Positive rights are much more of a burden, because they require action, and result in penalties if those actions are not taken in a specific, prescribed manner, such as the provision of necessary services. Unsurprisingly, much like it’s harder to spur people to action than rely on benign inertia, it’s far harder to enshrine a positive right than a negative one.

The uneasy overlapping of these rights within the living document create what Schreck calls a “penumbra,” a gray area where things can become fuzzy and the light recedes. In this area, language can become a glowing gift or darkening dagger; by specifying groups entitled to rights, others are suddenly cut off from this protection. A rewording out of general personhood has had a devastating impact on the rights of marginalized groups throughout history.

Schreck concentrates on examples impacting women, such as the ability to vote or be protected from domestic violence, in a way that’s equally sickening and stirring. To punctuate her points, she plays real recordings of Supreme Court justices who can’t even comfortably mention the names of menstrual products while legislating women’s futures, and providing commentary that turns sexist rhetoric on its head with quips like “I’m the daughter of a father.”

But what does this all mean to Canadians? As a dual citizen of Canada and the US who spent several years living there as a young adult, both I and my guest, another dual citizen who was born in and grew up in the States, learned a great deal about some aspects of American civics. It’s an eye-opening window into some of the countries’ differences and similarities.

In another twist, the Soulpepper, Nightwood, Necessary Angel and Talk Is Free production, the first outside of the US, is unlike any other. It ends not with a debate over the US Constitution, but over the Canadian one, as Atkins reflects on his personal experience with masculinity and Rutherford reveals both an additional flag and her debate opponent, real-life high school student Gabriella King. In their argument over the value of the Canadian Constitution, featuring some playful audience participation, the theoretical becomes practical, and we’re invited to reflect on what we want our nation to become.

Seeing WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME before Tuesday was an entirely different experience than it must be now, its heartfelt plea less a rallying cry for hope than a reminder that, for many, the Constitution seems to mean very little. In fact, watching it in the next few days might feel downright devastating. But it’s also a reminder that progress is never a straight line, challenges come in cycles, and the fight is always ongoing. In the end, it’s also a reminder that we can’t simply smugly look south with an air of enlightenment; rights anywhere are fragile, and to protect them, we’ll need clear eyes…and a strong constitution.

Photo of Amy Rutherford and Damien Atkins by David Hou

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