Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Will Arbery’s riveting HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING paints a startlingly lucid portrait of the Christian right

• By drediman
• October 8, 2019
• No Comments

The company of Will Arbery’s “Heroes of the Fourth Turning” at Playwrights Horizons. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Last night, Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning opened Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. When I caught Mr. Arbery’s previous play Plano last year at Summerworks – Clubbed Thumb’s excellent annual festival of adventurous new plays in the East Village – I thought the playwright showed wonderful promise. Although Plano wasn’t quite a masterpiece, I was caught off guard by this completely unique and alluring new voice that was at once theatrical and menacing without being opaque.

Well, with Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Mr. Arbery’s daring new play, he lives up to his consider promise by giving us a thoroughly riveting piece of playwriting. Set in Wyoming during a mini-reunion amongst alumni of a Catholic college, the play boldly drops us at ground zero of the current discourse within the Christian conservative right. What’s astonishing about the play is that it veers away from easy, low-hanging satire, but instead gives us a breathtakingly empathetic portrayal of “the other side”, and thereby a measured estimation of their political mindset. In two slow-burning, intermission-less hours, Mr. Arbery paints a startlingly lucid portrait in which we unnervingly see ourselves, in all our shades and complexities, in these young characters’ very different pursuits.

The Playwrights Horizons production has been directed by Danya Taymor with astounding clarity and sensitivity. From the get go, her haunting staging, much of which is shrouded in darkness, is infused with a vague but impending menace that magnifies and is the perfect vehicle for the stealthily mounting intensity of Mr. Arbery’s writing. As for their cast, they can hardly be bettered. John Zdrojeski, Zoë Winters, Jeb Kreager, Julia McDermott, and the great Michelle Pawk are all sensational, portraying their troubled, troubling characters with great care and conviction. Indeed, I walked away from Heroes of the Fourth Turning disoriented, disturbed, but also enlightened.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING
Off-Broadway, Play
Playwrights Horizons
2 hours (without an intermission)
Through October 27