Cheering the Constitution’s Demise
“I can tell you this much,” the old-timer at the end of the bar said to me the other night while I waited to meet a friend for a Broadway show. “I don’t think that lady likes men very much.”
We were at Sardi’s, and he was referring to Heidi Schreck, the writer and star of the one-act play I was about to see at the Helen Hayes Theater next door. What the Constitution Means to Me has enjoyed ecstatic reviews, a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, and an unexpectedly long run. According to Deadline.com, its financial backers are even making money! It shut down on Broadway this month; next it heads to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and then it’s off on a 40-week, 22-city tour.
I gave a half-hearted chuckle, and the old-timer shrugged. “You’ll see what I mean,” he said as I finished my drink and made for the door.
Only moments before, he had been boring me with an extended tirade on the evils of Republicans and boasting of his wife’s role in the Resistance. Somehow Schreck had found a way to crack his carapace of Manhattanite liberalism and poke at a sore spot beneath, producing his wary accusation of reverse sexism.
