Reviewed by Joseph De Rosa; photo by Brett Beiner Photography
Timeline’s production of Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me is the exact right play for America right now, and every American should see it.
It won’t happen. I know it won’t happen. But still…
I get it. Some people would walk out. Others wouldn’t be able to make it through the hour and forty minutes without looking away and squirming in their seats, and there will be tears. But still…
The play’s essential. And it’s beautiful. And it’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful. Everyone who is a citizen of the United States of America, and everyone who is a person in this world, should go see it. And they may as well go see it at the Timeline Theatre because Beth Lacke is amazing, Raymond Fox gets it just right, and they both basically broke my heart and then put it back together. So once more…
Every person should see this play.
Here’s why.
We need it. And not just because Timeline’s production is excellent, though it is most certainly excellent.
Helen Young’s direction is seamless. Scenic Designer Jessica Kuehnau Wardell’s American Legion set is a picture-perfect recreation of so many Legion Halls around our country, complete with the seemingly endless row of photographs of old men looking down on fifteen-year-old Heidi Schreck as she begins the play with the story of the speech she gave about how the “Constitution is a Crucible” in her quest to honor the document she loves and win the scholarship money she’ll one day use to put herself through college. The stage design is nostalgically haunting, and with yet another production, Timeline’s commitment to extending the theatrical experience works. The Timeline lobby is a museum dedicated to the Constitution’s history and those impacted by it, and the education outreach materials give both context and meaning as they set the stage for the performance.
We need this play. And not just because Beth Lacke is extraordinary in her role as Heidi Schreck, the play’s author and star, though she is most certainly extraordinary.
What the Constitution Means to Me is essentially a one-woman show, a Heidi Schreck tour de force, performed to perfection by Lacke, with brief, sensitive, beautiful interludes with the Legionnaire moderator, played by Raymond Fox. Lacke begins by gently leading us to believe this will be an upbeat look at the Constitution told by Schreck’s endlessly energetic, people-pleasing teenage-self. She’s wide-eyed and hopeful as she tells us about the powerful and often mysterious document we’ve all been taught to love. But as Schreck begins to weave her family story and deeply painful personal narrative into the story, the picture she paints about the Constitution and American History darkens.
It is entirely possible to run out of adjectives while describing Lacke’s performance. She’s everywhere all at once. Lacke channels Schreck and guides us through her life, swinging from joy to profound sorrow without reducing the author or ever losing the thread. She has us smiling at the aw-shucks, go-getter kid who stirs the witch’s brew of constitutional hokum. We’re crying as she relates the generations of domestic abuse experienced by women and their families left out by the constitutional protections and people who should have kept them safe. We are outraged with her at Supreme Court Justices who demonstrate their painful discomfort and/or ineptitude and/or utter lack of basic human understanding, but then we are lifted up by the hope that change may one day be possible and is, perhaps, well underway.
As evidence, following each performance of Schreck’s narrative, Lacke and either Makalah Simpson or Sophie Ackerman, depending on the show, engage in a debate moderated by Fox about a Constitutional inssue. For Wednesday’s Press Opening, Lacke and Simpson debated abolishing the Constitution. Lacke argued that a new Constitution that better protected human rights should be written, while Simpson defended the Constitution arguing it fundamentally provides the mechanism for protecting rights. We just need to do a better job interpreting it that way. In a turn that only further uplifted the moment, Simpson, a profoundly intelligent and inspirational high school senior celebrating her last day of school, won the argument.
And that’s why we need the play.
We need this play because Schreck’s beautiful story, Lacke and Fox’s performances, and Simpson’s argument give us a chance to view our nation’s history and deeply held national beliefs of equality and opportunity through a personal, unapologetic lens of hope, pain, frustration, and redemption. Schreck gives us a witch’s cauldron of ideas and hands us the responsibility of making the promise of our nation’s founding a reality for all Americans. She removes the veneer of the Constitution as a perfect document made by perfect people for a perfect country and gives us the reality of a perfect but as-of-yet unrealized promise of equality and justice that we, as citizens, must strive each day to live up to.
And together Schreck and Lacke teach us that to live up to this promise, we need to first figure out how to talk to each other about it, how to see and understand each other, how to listen to each other’s stories, how to support but also challenge each other with hard conversations and tough questions. And above all, Schreck calls on us to care about each other.
Go see this play.
What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck runs through July 2d at the Timeline Theatre at 615 W. Wellington in Chicago. Tickets and more info are available at timelinetheatre.com.
Every American Should See What the Constitution Means to Me
Reviewed by Joseph De Rosa
Timeline’s production of Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me is the exact right play for America right now, and every American should see it.
It won’t happen. I know it won’t happen. But still…
I get it. Some people would walk out. Others wouldn’t be able to make it through the hour and forty minutes without looking away and squirming in their seats, and there will be tears. But still…
The play’s essential. And it’s beautiful. And it’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful. Everyone who is a citizen of the United States of America, and everyone who is a person in this world, should go see it. And they may as well go see it at the Timeline Theatre because Beth Lacke is amazing, Raymond Fox gets it just right, and they both basically broke my heart and then put it back together. So once more…
Every person should see this play.
Here’s why.
We need it. And not just because Timeline’s production is excellent, though it is most certainly excellent.
Helen Young’s direction is seamless. Scenic Designer Jessica Kuehnau Wardell’s American Legion set is a picture-perfect recreation of so many Legion Halls around our country, complete with the seemingly endless row of photographs of old men looking down on fifteen-year-old Heidi Schreck as she begins the play with the story of the speech she gave about how the “Constitution is a Crucible” in her quest to honor the document she loves and win the scholarship money she’ll one day use to put herself through college. The stage design is nostalgically haunting, and with yet another production, Timeline’s commitment to extending the theatrical experience works. The Timeline lobby is a museum dedicated to the Constitution’s history and those impacted by it, and the education outreach materials give both context and meaning as they set the stage for the performance.
We need this play. And not just because Beth Lacke is extraordinary in her role as Heidi Schreck, the play’s author and star, though she is most certainly extraordinary.
What the Constitution Means to Me is essentially a one-woman show, a Heidi Schreck tour de force, performed to perfection by Lacke, with brief, sensitive, beautiful interludes with the Legionnaire moderator, played by Raymond Fox. Lacke begins by gently leading us to believe this will be an upbeat look at the Constitution told by Schreck’s endlessly energetic, people-pleasing teenage-self. She’s wide-eyed and hopeful as she tells us about the powerful and often mysterious document we’ve all been taught to love. But as Schreck begins to weave her family story and deeply painful personal narrative into the story, the picture she paints about the Constitution and American History darkens.
It is entirely possible to run out of adjectives while describing Lacke’s performance. She’s everywhere all at once. Lacke channels Schreck and guides us through her life, swinging from joy to profound sorrow without reducing the author or ever losing the thread. She has us smiling at the aw-shucks, go-getter kid who stirs the witch’s brew of constitutional hokum. We’re crying as she relates the generations of domestic abuse experienced by women and their families left out by the constitutional protections and people who should have kept them safe. We are outraged with her at Supreme Court Justices who demonstrate their painful discomfort and/or ineptitude and/or utter lack of basic human understanding, but then we are lifted up by the hope that change may one day be possible and is, perhaps, well underway.
As evidence, following each performance of Schreck’s narrative, Lacke and either Makalah Simpson or Sophie Ackerman, depending on the show, engage in a debate moderated by Fox about a Constitutional issue. For Wednesday’s Press Opening, Lacke and Simpson debated abolishing the Constitution. Lacke argued that a new Constitution that better protected human rights should be written, while Simpson defended the Constitution arguing it fundamentally provides the mechanism for protecting rights. We just need to do a better job interpreting it that way. In a turn that only further uplifted the moment, Simpson, a profoundly intelligent and inspirational high school senior celebrating her last day of school, won the argument.
And that’s why we need the play.
We need this play because Schreck’s beautiful story, Lacke and Fox’s performances, and Simpson’s argument give us a chance to view our nation’s history and deeply held national beliefs of equality and opportunity through a personal, unapologetic lens of hope, pain, frustration, and redemption. Schreck gives us a plethora of ideas and hands us the responsibility of making the promise of our nation’s founding a reality for all Americans. She removes the veneer of the Constitution as a perfect document made by perfect people for a perfect country and gives us the reality of a perfect but as-of-yet unrealized promise of equality and justice that we, as citizens, must strive each day to live up to.
And together Schreck and Lacke teach us that to live up to this promise, we need to first figure out how to talk to each other about it, how to see and understand each other, how to listen to each other’s stories, how to support but also challenge each other with hard conversations and tough questions. And above all, Schreck calls on us to care about each other.
Go see this play.
What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck runs through July 2d at the Timeline Theatre at 615 W. Wellington in Chicago. Tickets and more info are available at timelinetheatre.com.