Amy Rutherford in “What the Constitution Means to Me”, Photo by David Hou
“The Constitution is a crucible. It is NOT a patchwork quilt!”
This proclamation is the opening to fifteen-year-old Heidi’s speech to the men gathered at the American Legion. It’s her core analogy for the document and a snide potshot at her biggest debate competitor. Except this isn’t really Heidi Schreck, author of What the Constitution Means to Me; it is Amy Rutherford portraying a middle-aged Heidi pretending to be her teenage self—the one who put herself through college with the earnings from these constitutional debates. Presented by Soulpepper and Nightwood Theatre, in association with Necessary Angel and Talk is Free Theatre, this play—a lecture, a chronicle and a debate—invites us into a woman’s complicated relationship to a nation’s founding document.
Director Weyni Mengesha establishes a sharp focus on deliberate gestures, rhythms and changes of mood while allowing the space to feel open, the people in it causal and spontaneous—a delicate balance deftly maintained. The set is a mock-up of an American Legion hall, like the one in Heidi’s hometown of Wenatchee, Washington—institutional beige, wood panelling and a prominent American flag. Even more imposing than the flag is an expanse of military portraits looking back at us—a black and white history of men gathered to witness her prove her knowledge and allegiance.
Shreck loves the Constitution, the Law, yet that love is tempered by the knowledge that it hasn’t served everyone equally—women, people of colour, anyone not inherently represented by the white men who drafted that document. Damien Atkins, in full military dress, portrays a Legion member officiating the debate. With the lectern front and centre, it all feels very official. There is a great deal of fun in the nostalgic recreation of such an event. Articles and amendments are identified by rote, then given intimate context by her experience of them. Those little cue cards from grade-school speeches figure prominently.
Tension starts to build as Heidi pushes against the constraining rules of the debate to truly interrogate the tangible specifics of the law. Atkins (as a representation of authoritative masculinity) stiffens at her demand for the time and space to examine the human casualties of the law, especially as it existed for her predecessors. Four generations of women are featured here, beginning with her great-great-grandmother—a purchased bride who was held in a mental hospital for “melancholia” and died at the age of 36. Historically, women have been at the mercy of men under the law and, in many instances, it has failed them miserably and continues to do so.
Shreck’s script touches on issues of female bodily autonomy and protection from male violence, with her own experiential understanding of them as both a youth and older woman, highlighting a few influential cases associated with it. There are snatches of authentic archived audio featuring panels of men discussing aspects of the law as they relate to women—surreal and baffling in retrospective context. Especially hilarious is the excessive throat-clearing during discussions of contraception and women’s anatomy.
The play acknowledges that men play an integral part in “women’s issues.” How men understand themselves, how they see women and the necessary unpacking of those ideas and how they can be shaped. In the latter moments of the play, when Rutherford and Atkins shed the theatrical artifice to be themselves, Atkins gradually removes the military garb, exposing his own clothes underneath. He shares some poignant details of his own experience of masculinity. Particularly vulnerable and probing is his reflection upon a very specific moment in which he failed, in his estimation, to properly support a woman’s valuable personhood.
Rutherford and Atkins are genuinely disarming, as both their in-story counterparts and themselves. Though this is scripted, it has been informed greatly by their sincere involvement. Shreck has also reworked the finale here—a live round between Rutherford and local high school debater (an enthusiastic and persuasive Gabriella King)—to focus on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with the audience as jury. This segment in particular really conveys the immediacy of law, how it is an ever-evolving construct that impacts us all and which we, in turn, have the power to affect.
What the Constitution Means to Me
running October 31 to November 10, 2024
Michael Young Theatre (50 Tank House Lane)
running time: 90 minutes (no intermission)
Gabriella King, Amy Rutherford and Damien Atkins from “What the Constitution Means to Me”, Photo by David Hou