The Constitution Should Be Thrown In The Trash
This is my main takeaway after watching ‘What The Constitution Means To Me’ on Amazon Prime
The concept of ‘speaking truth to power’ is as old as the Ancient Greeks, who had a complicated word for this kind of free speech: parrhesia. The word roughly translates to ‘speak freely,’ or ‘boldly.’ The word informed early democracy and theater in Athens where citizens were obligated to speak out and playwrights encouraged to ridicule kings and gods.
Two thousand years later, democracy survives, if barely. In America, a modern republic, some of the traditions of the ancients still survive. Take writer-performer Heidi Shreck’s recent hit Broadway show What The Constitution Means To Me. The film version of the Broadway production is dutifully directed by Marielle Heller, who doesn’t get in the way of the star or the original staging.
The first part of the show is an autobiographical memory play about civic-minded 15-year-old Shreck giving pro-Constitution speeches for prize money at American Legion halls. The U.S. Constitution is a holy text to some, a distant memory from high school social studies class to others. To Shreck, it was how she put herself through college.
