Paramount's 'What the Constitution Means to Me' nearly note perfect
“What the Constitution Means to Me” — ★ ★ ★
Chicago-area theatergoers likely recognize two-time Joseph Jefferson Award-winner Cory Goodrich from musicals.
For more than 25 years, she has appeared regularly at Drury Lane, Mercury, Marriott and Paramount theaters where she typically delivers pitch-perfect performances.
But Goodrich has nonmusical credits, including guest spots on several NBC series filmed in Chicago. She further expands her repertoire with Copley Theatre's revival of “What the Constitution Means to Me.” Heidi Schreck's expertly written, carefully researched play is a profoundly personal examination of the U.S. Constitution and its failure to protect all the nation's citizens: Indigenous people, people of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community and women.
Goodrich has a warm and welcoming manner, an absolute command of the script and a first-rate scene partner in Kevin McKillip. But on opening night of director Lauren Berman's revival, her intonation was off.
The play — a combination memoir and civics lesson — opens with fortysomething actor/writer Heidi Schreck (Goodrich) describing how, at age 15, she earned college tuition traveling around the country competing in American Legion-sponsored oratory contests. Goodrich then shifts to Heidi's teenage self to re-create the winning speech, which compares the Constitution to a witch's cauldron from which “something that is sometimes magic” emerges.
Goodrich begins the play with an effervescence bordering on giddiness. That's fine when she's playing a brainy teen and self-described Constitution zealot, but the role requires an emotional authenticity that — at this point — her performance lacks. To be fair, Goodrich modulates her tone later in the play, when she resumes playing adult Heidi. But that perfect note combining young Heidi's idealism and wonder and adult Heidi's hard-won wisdom eludes her. That said, I expect Goodrich will locate it over the course of the run and her performance will deepen. When it does, this “Constitution” will really sing.
When it comes to right notes, Kevin McKillip hits them all. The former First Folio Theatre ensemble member plays Mike, the Legionnaire moderator who represents “positive male energy.” McKillip spends most of the play upstage, sitting silent in a chair on set designer Angela Weber Miller's paneled, 1970s-era American Legion hall. In a quietly nuanced performance, McKillip conveys Mike's responses to Heidi's revelations in slight but telling ways: a forward lean, a furrowed brow, clasped hands, angled legs.
Mike has one monologue — masterfully delivered by McKillip — which comes late in the play after he sheds his suitcoat and tie. Revealing his true self, the Legionnaire describes growing up gay, enduring taunts and blows and living in fear.
Heidi understands fear. She's lived it, so did her female relatives, who the Constitution failed to protect from men who abused and traumatized them. Their stories unfold as wrenching elegies. Equally unsettling are references to Supreme Court decisions confirming the document's imperfections that are so appalling they elicited gasps from the opening-night audience.
Yet the play concludes on a hopeful note, with a debate between Goodrich and a high school student on whether to preserve or abolish the Constitution. Vivian Webb, a poised junior from Metea Valley High School in Aurora, played The Debater at Wednesday's opening. She and Lilly Fujioka alternate in the role.
Watching a young person argue for change because she is convinced it is possible makes for an ideal coda. I hope people exited Copley Theatre inspired. I know they left better informed, with a complimentary pocket version of the U.S. Constitution that is more detailed than any version I've received to date. Here's hoping they read it.
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Location: Copley Theatre, 8 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora, (630) 896-6666, paramountaurora.com
Showtimes: 1:30 and 7 p.m. Wednesday; 7 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 5:30 p.m. Sunday through Nov. 12
Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $40-$55
Parking: Limited street parking, paid lots nearby
Rating: For teens and older; contains adult language and addresses sensitive subjects including domestic abuse, sexual assault and abortion