The cut-and-dried sounding title of Murphys Creek Theatre’s latest show belies its creative and quite humorous approach in engaging audiences with a personal civics lesson that is both heartfelt and altogether contemporary.
In celebration of the nation’s semiquincentennial, MCT’s choice to stage “What the Constitution Means to Me,” presents and provides a fresh way to ponder how the laws of our land came about, who they were intended for, how its amendments have evolved our ongoing democratic experiment and path to a more perfect union.
Directed by MCT’s Artistic Director Todd Thomas, the Tony and Pulitzer-nominated work by playwright, screenwriter and actor Heidi Schreck is semi-autobiographical, thought-provoking and through its various turns as poignant as it is hilarious. . Thomas serves as director for the offering.
Schreck, who played the self-named lead role of Heidi in the play’s 2019 Broadway premiere, received a Best Leading Actress in a Play nomination for conveying her personal perspective both through the lens of her current-day self and as a 15-year-old Constitutional debater in 1989 when she was chasing down scholarship funds by appearing at American Legion Halls to speak about various aspects of the U.S. Constitution.
Throughout the play, Heidi—both as a teen and then stepping out to speak as her present self—discusses multiple facets and perceived pitfalls of the Constitution, including that it still favors those for whom it was originally written: white men. Another is a deep-dive on the 14th Amendment, which discusses citizenship rights and what it means to be “American.”
Along the way she storytells personal examples of societal issues and ills as they directly related to and impacted her, her direct female ancestors, and marginalized others whose rights became embroiled in landmark legal cases.
Two other characters provide a counterpoint to her perspective. One is a male character who at the beginning of the play assumes the role of a stodgy, rules-stickler Legionnaire debate moderator before morphing into Mike, a gentler soul who shares his own experiences regarding sexuality and masculinity. The other, known as the Young Debater, appears later in the play to help facilitate an audience-interactive sequence to argue whether the U.S. Constitution should be upheld or abolished to make way for another way of governing the land.
MCT’s Executive Director Jodi Vaccaro, recently seen by MCT audiences in “Eureka Day,” and several other productions, capably fills the shoes of Heidi as both an all-in yet painfully awkward teen and a self-deprecating but well-centered adult and community advocate. Legionnaire/Mike, Mike Evans, who recently played the dual roles of Pistol and Burgundy in “Henry V,” is equally believable as both characters. Kate Edwards, who studied acting and scriptwriting at The Young Actors Studio before graduating high school with a focus on visual and performing arts, is impressively tell-it-like-it-is, self-assured and entertaining to watch as the Young Debater.
Ahead of the final showdown, audience members are offered their own pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution, more as a party favor than a momentary reference source before they are encouraged to weigh in on the debate with joyful noise in the form of foot stomps, claps and grunts.
Performances run through Aug. 30 with the remaining ones scheduled for Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday matinees. Every performance is Pay-What-You-Can or Pay-It-Forward, MCT’s program to help keep theatre tickets accessible for everyone. For details about the show, MCT and tickets, visit murphyscreektheatre.org
