Some plays you watch. Some plays you experience. This one’s in the latter group. Heidi Schreck wrote the play which is rooted in her own life. She also starred in the play — as herself — in multiple productions including a nearly six-month run on Broadway in 2019. What the Constitution Means to Me has been nominated for a bunch of awards and has won several. It was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. I knew none of this when I first saw an announcement for the production at Cincinnati’s Ensemble Theater.

Schreck is not part of the Cincinnati cast. Here Heidi is a character played by Connan Morrissey. There is no intermission or numbered acts but the play rather naturally divides itself into three portions. As a teenager, the real Heidi earned college money by entering and winning US Constitution-based speaking contests sponsored by the American Legion. The play’s first portion depicts that period with Heidi, the character, frequently breaking the fourth wall and the rules of the contest to speak directly to the audience. It starts when she first steps onto the stage, describes the contest setting, and asks everyone in the audience to pretend to be an old white cis-gendered male.

A Legionnaire, played by Phil Fiorini, keeps time and generally facilitates things as Heidi, the character, repeatedly sidesteps the contest to share family history and personal thoughts with the audience. Eventually, the pretend speaking contest is completely abandoned, and Heidi, the character, proceeds to share her thoughts directly from center stage. Those thoughts include how the Constitution has failed women, Blacks, Native Americans, immigrants, and others. She points not only to the words of the Constitution but to how this document written by old white men has been interpreted by what until recently was just another group of old white men. Playing a few recordings of Supreme Court discussions provides some all-too-serious laughs.

Freed of his Legionnaire duties, Fiorini moves on to portray Mike, another character/real person. Mike Iveson originated the role which, like the real Heidi being embodied in the character Heidi, brings forward some of the real Mike’s experiences with masculinity and homophobia. This naturally provides opportunities for pointing out how the Constitution has failed another big group of citizens but the real Mike and the real Heidi both see the role as something more. Schreck refers to “positive male energy”. Iveson talks about “modeling what it looks like when a man actually listens to a woman”. I read those comments only after seeing the play but they instantly made sense.

The play’s third phase begins when a third cast member is introduced. Twenty-one-year-old Sydni Charity Solomon plays herself in a debate on the proposition that the US Constitution should be rewritten by a more diverse group for a more diverse world. Cheering and booing by the audience is very much encouraged at this point and everyone is given a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution for reference. At debate’s end, an audience member is selected to determine the winner. It is my understanding that sides in the debate are determined each night by a coin flip and that the actual arguments may be different from one night to the next. On Thursday night, Heidi defended the proposition while Sydni attacked it. The selected audience member declared Sydni the winner meaning the Constitution should be kept and fixed rather than discarded and completely done over.

One of the performances with Heidi Schreck and Mike Iveson has been recorded and is available for streaming through Amazon Prime. I’m sure it’s good and seeing the real Mike and the real Heidi is certainly attractive though not so much as to get me to subscribe. If you have Prime and want to watch it, by all means, go ahead. It is true, though, that watching a movie is not the same as watching a play, and watching a play is not the same as experiencing a play. The intimate Ensemble Theater is a good place to experience What the Constitution Means to Me. It’s there through October 1.