‘What the Constitution Means to Me’: Theater Review

Lots of great plays acquire timeliness as their themes circle around again to find fresh echoes in the sociopolitical cycle — think Shakespeare, Shaw, Miller. But given the years of development usually involved, few new works for the stage are as instantly, trenchantly timely as writer-performer Heidi Schreck’s sui generis memoir What the Constitution Means to Me.

The seed idea for this deceptively freewheeling yet ingeniously structured piece — an impassioned civics debate illuminated by intense personal reflection that embraces both anguish and hope — was first hatched 20 or so years ago, with actual work on the play beginning some 10 years later. But its arrival right now seems almost a direct response to a moment in which women’s voices demand to be heard with an urgency not felt since second-wave feminism, and when so many basic rights of Democracy appear under threat. The temporal convergence is uncanny.