Church And State: A Summary of EU’s Latest Student-Directed Production
Sara Whitmore (Christine Rowe) stands while Charles Whitmore (Maddux Masopust) gives his election-winning speech in “Church and State” on Feb. 4. (Ian Murphy)
Elmhurst University’s Mill Theater presented “Church and State,” directed by Micaiah Brown, a play following the aftermath of a shooting at an elementary school, and how Senator Charles Whitmore (Maddux Masopust) responds to the shooting.
The show starts with Whitmore facing a decision on how to proceed with a speech and whether he should follow his normal campaign speech or create a speech that disavows the violence and creates a different discussion around God and religion. He talks to his campaign manager, Alex Klein (Trinity Reid) and Whitmore’s wife Sara (Christine Rowe), and tells them about an interview he had with a blogger. During the interview he talks about how he doesn’t understand how God could allow this tragedy to happen, and he does not believe prayer can work.
Masopust takes us through the motions of a man who is fighting his inner thoughts of self doubt and the outside world telling him he can not say how he truly feels. This play shows what a campaign can do to a relationship between a husband and wife, as we see the love between the Whitmores begin to fracture when their opposite beliefs in God and prayer are discussed. Masopsot and Rowe treat these roles as their own and demonstrate incredible realism during these discussions, bringing the topics that many partners debate every day front and center with their performance.
Their performance blurred the lines of drama and comedy when discussing the shooting and greater gun laws one minute, then the next minute Tom (Brenden Infante) could run into the scene allowing the audience a moment of relaxation and laughter. Reid brought in the sound political advice with her performance as Alex Klein. Klein was shown as a power hungry operative who was brought in as a voice of reason and drew Whitmore back to reality.
After a debate and a lot of frustration from Klein and Sara, Senator Whitmore says he’ll stick to the script for his speech and Sara stays back in the dressing room and convinces Klein to stay with her. They have many discussions including religion, why Klein was asked to be on the campaign and how they need to come together to help him win. This moment does not last long when the senator decides to rip up his speech and begins to talk about gun violence and religion causing Klein to run on to stage.
His speech is not well received at first, but ends up on social media and becomes famous allowing Whitmore to win a decisive victory with 70% of the vote. While he is planning to go onto the stage he goes through whether he should go with the written speech or if he should change the speech again. He sticks with the regular speech but once he starts his speech he ends up being shot and dies.
Sara becomes his replacement, and Rowe begins a monologue where she is giving a speech on the Senate floor when they are debating on a bill restricting gun access named after Senator Whitmore. During this monologue it almost felt like Rowe had just lost her own husband and was grieving his loss. At the end they went back in time to show Senator Whitmore giving his famous speech and Masopust brought a powerful voice into his final lines as Senator Whitmore, and as a member of the EU theatre company.
