What the Constitution Means to Me

Mike Iveson is the real name of the actor, Heidi’s friend, who plays the role of the moderator in the debate, first as a Legionnaire and then as himself. Heidi explains to the audience that she invited Mike as an example of “some positive male energy” (49), his presence a part of Heidi’s ongoing tacit apology to the good men she knows as she speaks about the plague of violent men and the patriarchy. As the Legionnaire, he is mild and sometimes folksy, but he is, above all, comfortable with his patriarchal power over the room and the contest. He is proud to be doing his part to raise up future lawyers and politicians. When Mike breaks character in the middle of Part I, addressing the audience as himself, he expresses surprise and discomfort at the idea of representing positive masculinity, as he doesn’t consider himself to be particularly masculine at all. He reveals that the Legionnaire isn’t just a random, faceless authority figure but based on Mel Yonkin, a real Legionnaire and a veteran of World War II, who took a grandfatherly interest in Heidi as a debater, joining her and her parents on the road to see Heidi compete. Despite Mel’s seemingly undeniable credentials of masculinity as a WWII veteran and a Legionnaire, he feels the need to hide his tears of paternal pride while watching Heidi debate. Mike sees himself as quite the opposite of Mel’s traditional masculinity.

As a gay man, Mike describes the ways that the patriarchy has imposed masculinity upon him and punished him when he fell short. He remembers the anti-gay slurs that were lobbed at him jokingly by adult men when he was a child, before he was even out of the closet. Mike also recalls his father policing his wardrobe and preventing him from leaving the house in traditionally feminine clothing, probably out of concern for his son’s safety. As a young adult, Mike had taken a punch in the face from a random teenager for his feminine outfit. Now, he has settled his fashion choices into the camouflage of generic masculinity, but he still experiences the fear of being seen by the wrong person. His victimization by the patriarchy and constant cognizance of the danger it represents echoes Heidi’s ambient fear and her defense mechanism of being agreeable and polite to men. The Legionnaire and Mike are two very different people with different points of disenfranchisement under the patriarchy, but they are also the authoritative framework of the debate competition. They represent the varying forms that masculinity can take and the power granted to men over women, as Heidi and her fellow debaters are always functioning in a patriarchal world.

Like the others in the play, Rosdely is not a character but a real person who is playing herself. During the Broadway run of the play, Rosdely alternated performances with Thursday Williams, another young local debater. The published play text includes a transcript of the debate from one of Rosdely’s performances, although the transcript is only one snapshot, as the extemporaneous nature of the debate means that it likely changed from night to night. At the time of the transcript (September 2018), Rosdely introduces herself as 15 years old and a local high school freshman in New York City. She began participating in parliamentary-style debates at about age 12 or 13, when she was in sixth grade, having argued on topics like the possible banning of plastic bags or the legalization of marijuana. Additionally, like Heidi at 15, she has traveled around the United States to argue about the Constitution. Rosdely is a young Black woman, and she represents the next cohort of youthful voices that have taken up the torch that Heidi once carried. Heidi expresses her awe of the newest generation for their bravery and compassion, and of teenaged girls in general, who are “shining a light backwards into the darkness” (53) to lead the older generation into the future. Rosdely is remarkably poised and confident for her age, sophisticated in her ideas about the Constitution—particularly considering that although the transcript reflects a performance in which she argues to keep the Constitution, other performances would require her to argue to abolish it with just as much poise and articulation.