Review: HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING at Streetcar Crowsnest

Theatre, for perhaps obvious reasons, has never been particularly receptive to a conservative point of view. Despite the relative conservatism of the play development process, theatre is generally considered to be a place for the misfits and the oppressed to tell their stories. From incidents like the cast of HAMILTON stepping out to address Mike Pence with a political message, to the line of AVENUE Q’s original finale, “George Bush is only for now,” we see theatre’s hostility towards a right-wing audience, as its own audience claps and cheers along.

And yet, theatre prides itself as a place to connect with others’ stories, developing a sense of community with and possibly even empathy for people completely different to us and our experiences. In Will Arbery’s HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING, the Other in the room with us is the Trump voter, the conservative Catholic anti-abortion American that feels so foreign to many.

In creating five well-rounded and starkly different characters, and in treating them without kid gloves but with grace, Arbery’s play is a fascinating and multifaceted look into the unexamined front of a burgeoning culture war set in the months following The Donald’s election in 2016. The Howland Company gives this 2020 Pulitzer finalist the thoughtful, unsettling and passionate production it deserves. It’s the kind of show that you’ll still be talking about weeks later.

The characters are all connected with a rural Wyoming Catholic college, similar to the one the playwright’s father became president of in 2016. Three of them are graduates: there’s Justin (Mac Fyfe), a soft-spoken mature student who is grateful to the college for giving him a second chance at life; Teresa (Ruth Goodwin), a perfectly-coiffed Connecticut overachiever who now lives in the trenches in Brooklyn, where she blogs about her devotion to theorists such as Steve Bannon; and lonely, inappropriate Kevin (Cameron Laurie), who’s getting drunk to try to fill the twin holes in his life—companionship and direction—and who is the butt of every joke.

They’ve come together at Justin’s house to celebrate Gina Presson’s (Maria Ricossa) ascent from professorship to the college presidency; she’s a self-professed “Goldwater girl” who reps for old-school conservatism, but who also campaigned for Pat Buchanan because she thought he could win. Gina’s daughter Emily (Hallie Seline) didn’t attend the college; instead, she worked at an organization that tried to counsel women out of having abortions before returning home to deal with her chronic, unidentified but debilitating pain which often leaves her bedridden, her twisting body at odds with her sunny, grateful personality.

Gina and the college’s insistence on a rigourous philosophical education means that the characters can spout in-depth analyses and quote from a host of intellectual sources; they  use them to come to a very different conclusion than the viewer might, but in a way that’s not so simply dismissible. They also come to vastly different conclusions from each other; for example, Emily believes that her friend who works for Planned Parenthood is a good person with a different definition of how to help oppressed women, while Theresa curtly theorizes that Emily’s friend’s actions make her evil, no matter the circumstances.

Teresa explains “the fourth turning” as a theory about a four-stage cycle of civilization from  prosperity via acceptance of authority, to questioning that authority, to a focus on absolute individualism, to a crisis situation requiring “heroes” to turn it back to prosperity. Our current stage, she opines, is the fourth, and conservatives are the heroes to take back the country. A loud, frightening noise (sound design by Jacob Lin) that goes off at odd intervals symbolizes a burgeoning war and keeps us on our toes. Justin claims it’s a faulty generator, but its clarion call suggests something darker may be brewing.

The play seeks our understanding of the characters, without seeking sympathy for or agreement with their viewpoints and actions. The characters’ stances are informed by their own baggage and damage, and they are anything but monolithic, an antidote to the coverage of Trump voters as a wall of mouth-breathers. One even admits to throwing up outside the polling station after pushing the lever.

Under Philip Akin’s direction, the two-plus hour intermission-less show constantly retains its tension and sense of discomfort (and no intermission means that you have to stay and hear the characters out until the end). The set (Wes Babcock) in Crows’ studio theatre fully encloses us within the outdoor space outside Justin’s farmhouse, managing to feel claustrophobic even in Big Sky country.

The cast is uniformly excellent in embodying their difficult characters. Mac Fyfe’s soothing cadence and reassuring presence throughout most of the show contrasts with an opening incident of violence; the slow, silent beginning gives the evening an almost mystical quality, while the ensuing dialogue situates it in the here and now. Laurie is a class clown with a broken heart, all of his attempts to be liked landing with a resounding thud.

Goodwin’s Teresa, her prim appearance at odds with her bluntly cruel manner, was so instantly recognizable of a character that she made my stomach hurt. And Ricossa’s late entry to the proceedings as Gina injects further tension into the proceedings, her early brittle warmth receding to something more imperious and draconian as her beliefs are questioned.

Of particular note is Seline’s Emily, whose desperate adherence to faith despite (or perhaps because of) her pain balks in the face of the group’s transformation into wannabe evangelicals, allowing themselves to descend into heresy rather than admit that what they want goes against their own beliefs. One can see on Seline’s face gradual disintegration of her composure, the desire to be pleasant and liked warring with her physical agony and need to be heard. She’s breathtaking while delivering a monologue detailing her experience with the brutal results of empathizing too much with those in different kinds of pain.

The actors are assisted by pitch-perfect styling by Laura Delchiaro, which gives you a clear understanding of their personalities with just a look, from Emily’s down-home-country booties, to Teresa’s palest-pink dress and conservative-chic sweater, to Gina’s patriotic power outfit of a red dress, blue asymmetric blazer, and white pearls.

The morning after Trump’s election in 2016, I walked into my college office in a daze. I noticed that, despite this being an arts and humanities department, my colleagues didn’t seem to feel the crushing weight of sorrow and terror that I did. Many even brushed the result off with a laugh, Canada feeling insulated and safe. Years later, we’re not laughing anymore, and the cultural divide seems ever-growing. HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING turns the spotlight across the aisle to show us the lives of people who we might not agree with, but who in their hopes and fears and dreams are just as real as we are, and as plentiful.

It’s not fun, or crowd-pleasing, but it is necessary viewing.

Photo of Mac Fyfe, Hallie Seline, Ruth Goodwin, Maria Ricossa, and Cameron Laurie by Dahlia Katz

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