“Heroes of the Fourth Turning:” Conservative Ideologies Collide
In a world that seems to be unraveling around us, Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning, now playing at Rogue Machine’s Matrix Theatre until October 16th, could not be more timely.
On a dark Wyoming night shortly after the 2017 Charlottesville melee, four young conservative alumni gather at their tiny Catholic college to toast Gina (played by Roxanne Hart), the newly inducted college president, who was so influential in shaping their religious, moral, and political thinking.
Gathering in the woods outside of town at the remote cabin owned by Justin (played by Stephen Tyler Howell)—older than the others and a gun-toting veteran—their celebration slowly devolves into chaos and recrimination as the emotionally damaged former classmates trace the painful paths their lives have taken since graduation.
Stephen Tyler Howell, Emily James, Evangeline Edwards / John Perrin Flynn
Back from Brooklyn, Teresa (played by Evangeline Edwards)—a Steve Bannon disciple and right-wing podcaster—delivers an increasingly strident anti-abortion screed. Emily (Emily James), the new president’s disfavored daughter, recalls her former job counseling pregnant women to keep their babies on the East Coast and has now been stricken down by a mysterious physical and perhaps psychosomatic malady. Their classmate, Kevin (Samuel Garnett) stays falling-down drunk the full two hours of the play, convinced that if only one of the two women—it matters little which—would love him, his life would get back on track.
As marvelously acted as the characters are, they appear to the audience as archetypes, representing particular, deeply held political, moral, and religious positions, rather than being actual well-rounded people. Their emotionally wrought intellectual positions can at times be distancing, often leaving no one to root for and identify with.
Perhaps part of that distancing comes from the largely unchallenged conservative viewpoints the characters express—anti-abortion, anti-critical race theory, anti-“entitlement society,” even pro-Trumpian—which is so at odds with most modern plays we see, at least here in Los Angeles. Even more unusual was hearing these high-level, academic points delivered matter-of-factly, unashamed and without an inherently negative lens.
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Evangeline Edwards, Emily James, Stephen Tyler Howell, Emily James / John Perrin Flynn
The only partial reprieve comes from Gina, who challenges Teresa, the loudest and most unabashed former student present. She questions Teresa’s sources, and pulls the young woman’s truest fear into the limelight to force her to, hopefully, confront it so she may be better able to form less emotional, less dangerous conclusions about the world at large.
In his playbill notes, Playwright Arbrey talks about growing up near a conservative Catholic college in rural Wyoming where his parents taught. As a boy, he would sit on the steps outside their home listening to his parents drink, smoke cigarettes, and talk with their students about conservative Catholic beliefs. In a way, Heroes of the Fourth Turning may recreate some of those memories, though probably with a good deal of added rancor.
The play’s “Fourth Turning” title references a seminal book by William Strauss and Neil Howe, which argues that after four 20-year generations, or turnings—renewal, stabilization, decline, and crisis—a new generation “would come into the world crisis confronted by massive crises caused by proceeding generation,” leading to a “turning” of society and vastly improved politics.
Evangeline Edwards, Samuel Garnett / John Perrin Flynn
Certainly, we can all see the crisis all around us—in our fractious politics; the dire warnings of raging climate change coming to pass; our country mired in yet another war; the resurgence of racism, homophobia, antisemitism; and on and on. We can only hope this turning leads to something better.
Heroes of the Fourth Turning is a powerful, deeply thoughtful play that is worth everyone’s time. As always, Rogue Machine does a marvelous job staging this provocative material.
Heroes of the Fourth Turning runs at 8 p.m. Fri., Sat., and Mon., and at 3 p.m. on Sun. through October 16. Rogue Machine’s Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles 90046.
The opinions expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the Hollywood Progressive.
