Have you ever watched as much news or followed as much politics as you have in the past 3 years? Sometimes I feel like all I hear is sadness and scary things and I just want to turn it off and make it stop. But it won’t stop even if we don’t pay attention and especially if we don’t pay attention. So I’m glad I was invited as media to see “What the Constitution Means to Me” in Seattle or I would have totally missed out. This is the play a lot of us need to see to understand the root of the politics that guide our lives and it’s a play that can give us healing and hope.
Hearing that it was mostly a one person play for almost 90 minutes made me think it might be a lecture. It is not a lecture and if anything it’s more of a lesson disguised in stories that remind us all of our own lives-with some of them comedy networkish and some of them that sneak up and make your eyes fill with tears.
When the play begins it takes me a few minutes to realize it’s starting. Cassie Beck (who plays Heidi Schreck the playwright and the protagonist from Washington State) approaches the stage effortlessly and disarms the audience in such a vulnerable way that I feel like she’s just out there talking to me, but me if I imagined myself as a cis-gendered white male and then in the very same moment she is speaking to the very core of my actual being too. And this kind of simplicity only comes when something is incredibly well-written and designed.
“What the Constitution means to me” talks about hard things. Like what is like to be a woman in America. It reminds us of the blissful naiveté and corresponding bravery we have when we are 15. It asks us if we need a Constitution. And it reminds us that we might not know much about the Constitution and its amendments or about the people who decide on the laws that govern all of our lives and we really should. (And if you’re reading reviews to figure out if there is anything that might be triggering in this play, it does have mentions of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking as well as discussions of abortions and its stigmatization.)
I love that when the play is seemingly over we are taught how to debate and remember that even if we have different ideas and different beliefs we are human and we need to always look for that and be curious about each other. Audience members from the night before submit questions: Would you rather fight a chicken the size of a horse or a hundred chicken sized horses? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? In so many ways this play hits the jugular of this country in one big punch and reminds us that we have such a duty to protect life, liberty and freedom for all. (And don’t we really need to be able to dream about 5 years from now again?)
I am so in awe of people who can remember hours of dialogue like Cassie Beck did in this play and we saw Leah Scott and Gabriel Marin perform with her on opening night too. I am also tempted to bring my guys-they are 14 and there is a teen night on October 21st and the play runs in Seattle until October 23rd. If you go to this play, please feel free to message me here on through instagram and I’d love to hear what you think. (And if you are not in Seattle you can also watch it on Prime Video too!)
(PS. Seattle Rep is one place in Seattle that still asks people to mask and it was really refreshing to see 100% compliance.)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
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