THEATRE REVIEW

FEBRUARY 2025 | Volume 248

 

Every review and ad I’ve read for Will Arbery’s 2019 play Heroes of the Fourth Turning, about a gathering of conservative Catholics a week after the 2017 Charlottesville riots, argues that the play gives leftist theatregoers a rare glimpse into the minds of the intellectual right-wing. There is some truth to that; and seeing the play in the first weeks of Trump 2.0 makes the doctrines and belief systems of the five characters even more chilling. But whatever Arbery’s intention, John Murphy’s excellent Mitch and Murray production left me shaking my head.

The setting is a party to celebrate the ascension of Gina (Jennifer Clement) to the presidency of a small Catholic college in rural Wyoming. The guests are all former students there: Gina’s daughter Emily (Elizabeth Barrett), Kevin (David Kaye), Teresa (Nyiri Karakas) and ex-Marine Justin (Aaron Carven), the oldest at 38. Gina doesn’t turn up until the last third of the play. Until then, the other four argue, debate, speechify and reveal their various demons.

Justin is the quietest of the four. He seems to carry some heavy weight—maybe PTSD from his time as a Marine. But he’s doctrinaire to the core. When Kevin suggests that he might want to move to Brooklyn where Teresa lives, Justin warns him not to: “Exposure to LGBT is a threat to a Christian.” Later he offers to teach marksmanship at the college.

Kevin seems as troubled as Justin, and not in a quiet way. Funny, manic and pathetic, he’s radically insecure about his faith and just about every other aspect of his life, and consumed with self-loathing, all exacerbated by his drunkenness. Still, he asks the most trenchant questions in the play. Though often flirting with serious over-the-topness, Kaye’s performance is atour de force, including the most graphic vomiting I’ve seen on a stage.

Emily is both the most liberal and most overtly religious. With her characteristic epithet, “Oh my sweet Jesus God,” she leads the others in a rosary. But she responds to Justin’s LGBT remark by saying that they should avoid “transgender-bashing.” And though militantly anti-abortion like the others, she argues that her friend who works for Planned Parenthood is nevertheless a good person. Emily suffers physical agony, some kind of chronic pain that attacks her acutely from time to time. Barrett’s performance is another of the show’s highlights.

The radical in this dialectic,Teresa is a dogmatic acolyte of Steve Bannon, convinced they’re in a war, “the fight to save civilization,” and the battle must be no-holds-barred. Angry, humourless and consumed with the righteousness of her cause, she’ll brook no compromises. Emily’s friend can’t be a good person; she’s a baby-murderer. Empathy is a weakness to be despised: “Liberals are empathy addicts.” Back in 2017 Teresa might have been considered psychopathic. Today, she’d be mainstream MAGA.

Gina is the most like a traditional, old-line conservative. You can see where Emily gets her relative liberal-mindedness. Though once a member of the John Birch Society and a supporter of what used to be considered the most radically right-wing Republican candidates, Gina is appalled by Teresa’s rhetoric and by the current MAGA crowd, including Bannon and Trump, although she’s happy about what the new Supreme Court will do to Roe v. Wade.

What’s most chilling about all this is that, if there were a Part 2 of this play like A Doll’s House Pt 2, and we met the characters again in 2025, it would be clear whose position turned out to be the dominant one. And if art indeed imitated life, all the characters would have revised their earlier opinions and be 100% behind the current regime. 

In a teeth-gritting way I really enjoyed this production. All the acting is of a very high caliber, and the play—whatever its politics—takes on serious issues in a mostly serious way.

I say mostly serious because Arbery’s script absolutely jumps the shark in its last few minutes. Without giving too much away, I’d point to three utterly bizarre, sudden diversions from the play’s otherwise logical naturalism. These involve what appear to be some kind of Satanic presence, some kind of demonic possession, and a job offer straight out of Monty Python.

On second thought, those all seem perfectly logical in our New World Order.

 

 

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