The result is by turns deeply funny, heart wrenching, inspirational, and one of the most searing and enlightening pieces of political theatre in recent memory. If you have been paying attention and are mad as hell, if your faith in America has been tested past the breaking point, if you feel like putting your head between your knees and wailing until your voice goes hoarse, get yourself to New York Theatre Workshop. You\u2019re in excellent company.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n The rules of competition, as laid out by Mike Iveson (playing an American Legion moderator, and later himself), encouraged young speakers to make their arguments personal by demonstrating how the Constitution\u2019s legalese actually affected their lives. Schreck takes this approach to the entire piece, illustrating specific clauses with family lore that reaches back through generations of women<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Her great-great grandmother was considered a \u201cgood immigrant\u201d when she arrived from Germany \u2014 after her husband ordered her from a catalogue. Her official cause of death was \u2018melancholia\u2019 at the age of 36. Grandmother Schreck\u2019s second husband was horribly abusive; Schreck\u2019s mother is the one who turned him in. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does it mean,\u201d Schreck asks, \u201cthat the document will not protect us from the violence of men<\/a>?\u201d It was the most urgent question coursing through everyone\u2019s veins when I attended the show on Thursday, September 27, after millions had spent the day rapt by starkly contrasting testimony regarding Christine Blasey Ford\u2019s alleged sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanagh.<\/span><\/p>\n The statistics are startling, but nothing new. As Schreck puts it, \u201cmore American women<\/a> have been killed by violent male<\/a> partners in the last century than Americans have been killed in wars, including 9\/11.\u201d Not just any men<\/a>, but their own romantic partners. \u201cI think you can feel it kind of humming underneath\u2026 everything,\u201d Schreck says of this fact. That night it felt more like a roar, one that will likely continue to resound for some time.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Schreck, who began developing this piece 10 years go, is a remarkably sincere storyteller with a gift for remaining uncannily present in the room and in the moment. When a cell phone went off in the front few rows, she actually thanked the offending patron for providing a release valve to a particularly emotional moment. In Schreck\u2019s hands and under Oliver Butler\u2019s direction, <\/span>What the Constitution Means to Me<\/span><\/i> feels unmistakably alive \u2014 like a vital conversation, a sit-in, a seance of sorts for the soul of the country. It even turns into a live<\/a> debate, when an real teen<\/a> debate champ comes out to spar with her (a preternaturally sharp Rosdely Ciprian the night I attended).<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy mom says when you get worried that everything is moving backwards, that things are getting worse instead of better,\u201d Schreck says, \u201cyou should imagine a woman<\/a> walking along a beach with a dog.\u201d Picture the dog scurrying back and forth, but recognize that the woman<\/a> continues to move forward. The world has little choice but to follow.<\/span><\/p>\n Recent theatre features\u2026 Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar The post \u2018What the Constitution Means to Me\u2019 Is the Best Political Play of the Trump Era: REVIEW<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad Gay News<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/em>(photos: joan marcus)<\/p>\n