'What the Constitution Means to Me': Is the Founders' masterpiece foundering?

Claire Wilcher plays a contestant pleased with her Constitutional savvy.

The two founding documents of this country used to occupy different places in my estimation. As a young student, the rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence swayed me more (though I once had to sit down in a classroom spelling bee for rendering "of" as "o-v," mindlessly hearing the word's sound of "f" in my junior-high head).

 Later, the exaggeration in the document's complaints against the Crown turned me off: such a ton of special pleading. "A decent respect for the opinions of mankind"?  Oh, come on! More like a scorned elite's justification of rebellion on steroids.

In college, the Constitution gained stature with me because it avoids rhetorical flourishes, and I'm so pleased it never mentions God as the guarantor of any of our government's structures or the people's rights. (Are you paying attention, Christian Nationalists?) 

And then there are those Amendments, with the Second in my youth yet to trigger all the trouble it has caused this century. Of course, let's not forget the amendment that had to be withdrawn, and almost everyone drinks to its repeal to this day.  And there is the one that almost got into the Constitution and should have. The failure of the Equal Rights Amendment brings me to the play under consideration here.

"What the Constitution Means to Me," a play by Heidi Schreck that opens tonight at the Phoenix Theatre, is a co-production of American Lives Theatre and Stage Door Productions, directed by K.T. Peterson. The setting is the American Legion Hall in Wenatchee, Washington, Schreck's hometown. The theatrical presentation goes well beyond the Brechtian innovation of addressing the audience and involving it in the proceedings. 

Ben Tebbe plays a Legionnaire invested in his duties.  

The play's title indicates the sort of test for ambitious teens to declare their feelings for and knowledge of patriotic topics, with winners at one post after another getting scholarship help from the sponsoring American Legion. 

As an adult woman, relating the Constitution and its shortcomings to her own life, Heidi opens up with a searing family history full of disrespect and violence toward women, linking this personal saga to the status of women and girls as unprotected for centuries in American law.

As a teenager, Heidi is head-over-heels enthusiastic about the Constitution and her multiple chances to show off her knowledge and speaking skills under the Legion's watchful patriotic eye. The personal pain is suppressed with difficulty in service to the assignment. 

There is probably no local actor superior to Claire Wilcher in projecting enthusiasm. Plus, she has to deliver more words per stage minute than in any role short of Hamlet. There's little opportunity to play off a colleague, as if "What the Constitution Means to Me" were a one-actor show. Wilcher is thus challenged by not

Jada Radford revels in debating Heidi/Claire.

having a lot of interaction with her main cast partner, Ben Tebbe as the presiding Legionnaire, straitlaced but sometimes yielding to Heidi's impassioned digressions and bending the rules. 

A specialist in comic roles, Wilcher has to cover a spectrum of emotions here, lightened by the playwright's gift for self-deprecation. She always plays to the hilt. She doesn't pause her performance when she's not speaking; facial expressions continue to convey the character.  She is fully in this role as well, so that the wealth of lines is consistently filled out by an uninterrupted portrayal in visual terms.

In the shorter, informal second act, actor Jada Radford joins the performers as herself, debating the proposition that the Constitution should be abolished and replaced by an up-to-date version. Do its weaknesses suggest it should be entirely replaced by a new document, or is the flawed foundation of this country capable of enough revision to remain intact, with amendments added as deemed necessary? 

This controlled contest was lively and spontaneous at the preview I attended. It will need to continue approximating the compelling nature of the more substantial first act as the production continues through Sept. 22. 

[Photos: Indy Ghost Light]