Autotheory and What the Constitution Means to Me
Autotheory and Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me:
“Why not me?” becomes “Why not all of us?”
A reflection on the burgeoning genre as I dramaturge theatre KAPOW’s upcoming production.
By Claire Soleil Gardner
Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me challenges form, genre, and convention so thoroughly that it is hard to explain without acknowledging a new genre of contemporary playwriting, autotheory. Autotheory is the blending of memory based narrative and political or philosophical theory. Schreck uses both memory and political theory onstage to bring her audience’s attention to the Constitution, something few of us in the 21st century bother with anymore. Why bother with reading that dry hundred-year-old document that has lost its meaning and power when there are screens and an attention economy begging for our eyes? What the Constitution Means to Me compels us to care about the document. When What the Constitution Means to Me had its off-Broadway run in 2018, and Broadway run in 2019, the attention economy was already in full swing. However, since the 2018 premiere of the play, the battle for attention and new technology has vastly accelerated. What’s different between 2018-19 to now? Only a global pandemic that made society completely reliant on new technology, the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, the 2021 insurrection at the capital, and AI technology’s rapid integration into everyday life- need I say more? Throughout this period of accelerated changes and disruptions in America, Schreck’s play remains relevant through its ageless questions about nationhood, personhood, and where those questions lie in America’s founding document. What the Constitution Means to Me’s continued relevance has much to do with its burgeoning genre, autotheory.
According to Robyn Wiegman, a professor of literature at Duke University, there is no critical consensus on the meaning of the term autotheory; it is a new and nebulous literary concept, popularized by poet and critic Maggie Nelson in her 2015 book The Argonauts. In an interview with The Interval, Schreck stated that “I like autotheories a lot. Maggie Nelson [in The Argonauts] was weaving together a memoir with literary theory and then jumping back and forth between a very rigorous political form and very personal material, and I liked that.” The personal and the theoretical are not routinely intermingled in autobiography or in intellectual theory. The bridge of autotheory between the two well defined genres is a new writing form that rebels against the separation of personal life and academic theory. Autotheory echoes the phrase popularized by radical feminist Carol Hanisch: The personal is political. Autotheory is activist-oriented exploration of the living identities of marginalized subjects that requires an exploration of self and an exploration of systemic power structures. Even seven years ago, Schreck’s use of the form and its transformation into a play was cutting edge, while staying true to playwriting traditions.
Some of the most iconic playwrights of the 20th century set a precedent of challenging structure and genre. Schreck shares “… in the tradition of María Irene Fornés, my great hero, I don’t usually begin with a clear goal of what I’m trying to do. I begin to write very intuitively and instinctually. In the beginning, while I was making it, I was going so much on instinct because I knew I wanted to make something new” (Myers, Victoria. “The Prophet Arrived: Heidi Schreck”, The Interval, 10 Dec. 2018). Bringing autotheory to the stage came from Schreck’s intuition, not from recreation of classical play structures. As a lifelong theater maker it is no wonder Schreck’s instincts are so fruitful. She brought autotheory’s embrace of subjectivity home to the stage, so it could thrive in new and exciting ways.
By bridging theory, memory, and narrative, autotheory generates unique writing that exists outside the bounds of objectivity. Autotheory is feeling and context. Nuances of personal context are as debated as historical and political contexts by those involved. When Schreck examines four generations of women in her family, she acknowledges the contested nature of their lives, as much as she acknowledges the contested nature of the Constitution. In Schreck’s examination, she allows emotion to interact with intellect as an equal. However, Schreck herself is the narrator, complicating her role in the exploration of family stories and national stories. Autotheory brings up questions of sincerity versus honesty, a friction passed down from the autobiography genre. Can anyone be completely honest when discussing themselves? If it is what they sincerely believe, does that make it the truth? What’s the difference between personal truth and empirical truth? Schreck steers into the complexity of writing about the women in her family by making herself the main character and narrator of What the Constitution Means to Me. Fictional narrators can lie to the audience; sincere narrators can only lie to themselves. By revisiting her fifteen-year-old self in the first half of the play, Schreck examines her own sincerity, and the lies or inaccuracies within it. In Dickensian fashion, she explores herself with a mentor from her past, who transforms into an actor contemporary from her present, and later is joined by a teenage debater who represents the future. They all reflect different aspects of the main character, and more than merely fact checking her, demonstrate her plurality as an individual. Each of us is many different people, to different people, even in one lifetime or one play.
Anything that begins with “auto-” implies a certain amount of focus on the self, yet Schreck strives to include those beyond her lived experience. As a narrator she consistently challenges her understanding of the Constitution and her personal history. In the play she tries to understand herself and the history she was taught by asking “Remember that thing I said about the male-to-female ratio in Washington state being nine to one? That’s not true. That’s what my history teacher Mr. Berger taught me. There were thousands of women in Washington, of course: the women of the Wenatchi tribes, the Salish tribes. And, apparently, some of these women had been marrying white men for a long time…” (Schreck, 32). Schreck is not always flawless in her inclusion. As a Native woman, being included as the consistently worst off in violence statistics or solely in the context of marrying white men isn’t exactly uplifting representation. There are many examples of what Native women have contributed to America and its founding document beyond martyrdom or marriage, especially through contributions to the Great Law of Peace. Though Schreck’s script doesn’t feature this unsung history, by the nature of autotheory Schreck recognizes her own insufficiencies on a topic as large as the Constitution. Instead of using the discomfort of an exposed ignorance as an excuse to exclude those outside her lived experience, she includes as many women as she can in her feminism. In Theatre Kapow’s February 2026 production, we have had to update certain statistics and facts that have been disproven or unbound with time and perspective, something Schreck fully endorses in her show notes. Even as the playwright and star, she is vulnerable enough to recognize her own mistakes. Schreck utilizes autotheory not to focus on the self, but to gain a deeper understanding of the self, offering a certain humility. Autotheory entails applying analytical thought to oneself, which requires self awareness and accountability in pursuit of the truth. Maybe even more precious than the pursuit of truth, is autotheory’s pursuit of understanding.
While focusing on how the Constitution has excluded and failed American women, including those in her own family, Schreck consistently gestures to the understanding that reality is far bigger than any one viewpoint, including her own. Schreck recognizes that violence against women must be examined through a nuanced, and intersectional frame. Schreck’s narrator is undeniably sincere in her humble willingness to meet what simply is, freshly. Schreck undeniably brought something new and fresh to Broadway and to autotheory, by taking the burgeoning genre to the stage. This genuine organic aspect is being highlighted by contemporary theater writers to express what has always been true about the theater- that what you see on stage is real. Whether or not you agree with its interpretations, it is sincere. Theater is happening live, in real time, instead of in compressed virtual time. It brings us to the present, where we can examine the past’s darkness and the future’s hope with special attention. Schreck expands her questioning of the Constitution from, “Why couldn’t the Constitution protect my grandmother and mother from abuse?” to the question, “Why doesn’t the Constitution protect all women?”. “Why not me?” becomes “Why not all of us?”. Schreck’s play is a web of questions about protection, and by using the genre of autotheory, her play activates our attention and understanding in an utterly human way.
