Broadway: a spectacle of throbbing lights and a brisk melody, the fourth wall being toyed with like a door on weak hinges, probably a ton of singing or celebrity cameos. Entertainment is probably the biggest driving force for why anyone who isn't from New York to hazard a train early in the morning for a matinee. Let's go watch "the Phantom of the Opera" again!
Actually, that closed a little while ago. Lopped off the Majestic marquis like a necrotic appendage, and I love that show, but that's for another review.
So what else is there? Wicked? The Lion King? Whatever fever dream series of introductions Cats, The Starlight Express, and a Chorus Line were? No. Lets take away the fourth wall, the lights, and good golly put the singers on vocal rest and lets look at something fresh.
Let's instead think about the Constitution, and oh boy how it has turned the notions of the use of a Broadways stage on it's head.
When I first was introduced to the title of "What the Constitution Means to Me" for my dramaturgy class--just the notion of the title--I felt some degree of defeat. I'm a history major wanting to take a theater minor as a respite. Not to say anything about theater is easy, but rather to explore notions of the artistic and how it ticks rather than dissecting yet another historical document.
Seriously, let's watch "the Phantom of the Opera" for thirty more years.
But then I had to put my hand in my mouth because while "What the Constitution Means to Me" by Heidi Schreck was more than a dissection of a dusty old document, but an exploration of the spectacle of simplicity and the purest uses of the theater space as a social and entertaining medium of delivering an important message.
Heidi Schreck created a production that removed itself from usual stage productions with her use of minimalism. She used the extent of a relatively empty space without forcing the avant garde nature of stripping a space down to bare-bones for the stark effect. A wall of masculine faces surrounded her in warm lighting like that of indoors as she recounted her past as a young girl exploring what she understood of the Constitution as part of a contest.
As the play continues, she interrupts her past self delving deeper into her real thoughts and experiences of the time, some comical and quaint, and others emotional where she left her heart bare on the stage, physically stripping herself down of a costume piece as she grew more real and as contemporary concerns surfaced.
She explored further back into the understanding she had of her female ancestors as the dissection of the Constitution occurs, and audiences can see how and why the neglect of including the language of womanhood in the document denied and suppressed the rights of women since it's conception. She explores various aspects of the history and legacy of the Constitution and it's Ammendments that weren't specific to her or her relatives, and found how it all connected to her being in the moment with her audience.
With her live guests we see how the legacy carried through to today as young women were brought onto the show to formally debate reasons for and against destroying the Constitution and starting anew and thus audiences got a glimpse into the future of young women in the nation as active participants of the social and political world. Audiences also saw with one of her co-stars how the denial of a feminine presence in the Constitution allows modern men to exploit masculinity as an excuse to delegitimize the voices of other men and the queer community, as well as women.
Emotional, factual, and most importantly: honest and physically stripped of the traditional fabricated glamour and pretense of Broadway shows. Heidi Schreck's "What the Constitution Means to Me" set a new standard for the use of Broadway as not only a place to tell entertaining stories that draw in audiences for the drama or the joy, but also a place where the untold stories of our history and our country can be presented to any audience with the same level of class, charm, comedy, and reverence as any other long lasting show.
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