‘What the Constitution Means to Me’ brings democracy, debate to The Bushnell

“What the Constitution Means to Me” is a monologue about a debate about a written document, which also finds room for legal arguments, emotional confessions and lots of jokes.

The celebrated, socially and politically relevant performance piece by Heidi Schreck ran for four months off-Broadway and six months on Broadway in 2019. The show’s national tour, delayed by the COVID shutdown, finally arrives at The Bushnell Jan. 26-30.

A lot of what’s been written about “What the Constitution Means to Me” understandably concentrates on its content: Schreck’s reminiscences of being a touring teen debate champion, which morph into adult concerns about abortion rights and the role of government. But those who’ve experienced any of Schreck’s other theatrical works will recognize how she loves to deconstruct styles and formats, find new perspectives and angles, undermine reality by breaking theater’s fourth wall and otherwise keep audiences guessing.

“I am truly am often driven by a fleeting idea, which then becomes an obsession,” Schreck says in a recent phone interview. “Finding all the structures interests me,” Schreck says. “It seemed interesting to structure a play around the rules of a contest: Are we having a debate or aren’t we? I was playing with that form, and I didn’t know where it would take me.”

In the case of “What the Constitution Means to Me,” Shreck found that the experimentation took her to the staging of an actual debate. “It’s a living thing. I had no choice but to end it that way.”

“What the Constitution Means to Me” starts by exemplifying the rules and orderliness of a formal debate, but ultimately it makes its greatest points through lived-in situations and emotional outbursts.

Now it’s on tour, there’s a further level of abstraction: In New York, Schreck — an Obie-winning actor as well as a writer — starred in “What the Constitution Means to Me” herself, without an understudy. On tour, the role of Heidi Schreck is being performed by Cassie Beck.

Connecticut had an eight-year head start on seeing Cassie Beck in a Heidi Schreck play. Beck was a true scene-stealer as the ultra-capable, frisky and flirty receptionist Tania in Schreck’s comedy “The Consultant” at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre in 2014. The Courant’s theater critic at the time, Frank Rizzo, said Beck was “smart, funny, knowing and has killer comic instincts.”

“We knew each other from the very small web of New York theater people,” Schreck says of Beck. Schreck herself has also acted at Long Wharf, alongside Sam Waterston and Brian Murray in Simon Gray’s “The Old Masters” in 2011.

“I would have liked to do the tour,” Schreck says, but in March 2020 she gave birth to twins and has been staying home with them, working on writing jobs rather than acting ones. Besides her stage scripts, Schreck has TV writing credits for “Billions,” “I Love Dick” and “Nurse Jackie” and is also active as a TV producer.

The off-Broadway, Broadway and touring productions of “What the Constitution Means to Me” have all been directed by Oliver Butler (who besides numerous off-Broadway shows, helmed “Bad Jews” at Long Wharf and “The Plot” at Yale Rep), whom Schreck credits with “experience building plays from the ground up.” “What the Constitution Means to Me” began over a decade ago, Schreck says, as “a little performance” she did at the experimental theater spaces Dixon Place and P.S. 122 in New York City, and gradually worked its way up to a full-length presentation.

Beck’s main scripted monologue, which can sound uncannily informal and improvised, has been altered “a tiny bit,” Schreck says, for the tour. “There’s a breakout moment,” the playwright and former leading actor says, where Beck becomes more her own character, in her own name, because “we felt strongly that she shouldn’t be Heidi when she’s debating.” She’s referring to the show’s lively climax, when a teen debater faces off against the show’s star on the topic of abolishing the U.S. Constitution.

So while “What the Constitution Means to Me” may sound like it’s a one-person show, the main performer shares the stage with a couple of other people: actor Gabriel Marin, initially dressed as an American Legionnaire who’s hosting the kind of public debate Schreck engaged in a child, then (in alternate performances) the young debaters Jocelyn Shek or Emilyn Toffler.

That debate, as those who’ve seen two separate versions of it (with the Broadway debaters Rosdely Ciprian and current Trinity College student Thursday Williams) in the filmed version of “What the Constitution Means to Me” on Amazon Prime Video can attest, has settled into a groove, its key statements set in stone. But it’s not scripted, Schreck confirms. The debaters formed their arguments organically over time, and continue to update them with fresh statistics. It’s another clever way that the play plays with formats and styles. “It’s a prepared thing, but in the way you would do it in a class,” Schreck explains.

The show actually keeps statistics on who wins each debate; a tally is shown onscreen in the Amazon Prime Video version. Who’s doing the debating can clearly affect which side wins, but now the show is on tour the region where the debate is happening can also make a difference. Schreck is sometimes surprised by the results. “In places like Dallas, there are more ‘abolishes’ than I expect.”

The Bushnell stop will be special because Connecticut figures directly in a real-life example of the sort of conflicting speech patterns explored by “What the Constitution Means to Me.” An audiotape is heard of from the 1965 U.S. Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut. The recording gets laughs because Thomas I. Emerson, the lawyer for Estelle Griswold (who’d opened a birth control clinic in New Haven in 1961 when contraception was still banned in the state), as well as Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, find themselves clearing their throats constantly because they’re so uncomfortable talking about women’s bodies.

Touring brings some other new issues to the table, including that this intimate, chatty show, set as if it’s in a small-town meeting hall, is now playing theaters like the 2,800-seat Bushnell. “For me,” Schreck says, the 500-seat Helen Hayes Theater in New York “looked big. Cassie’s been having a great time on tour, but she’s having to modulate her voice depending on the space.”

Much has been written about how timely the show seemed during the 2020 Presidential election, and again how timely its abortion rights arguments seem now that central tenets of Roe v. Wade are being reassessed by the Supreme Court. Schreck has heard “timely” a lot, and responds that the play “covers so much territory, especially the 14th amendment, that it always interacts with whatever is happening.”

“What the Constitution Means to Me” by Heidi Schreck, starring Cassie Beck, runs Jan. 26-30 at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. $32-$99. bushnell.org.

Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.