Heroes of the Fourth Turning explores Christian conservatism
Vancouver’s Mitch and Murray Productions mounts Will Arbery’s complex and challenging play
(From left) Jennifer Clement, David Kaye, Elizabeth Barrett, Aaron Craven, and Nyiri Karakas in Heroes of the Fourth Turning. Photo by Shimon Photo
Mitch and Murray Productions presents Heroes of the Fourth Turning from January 31 to February 9 at Studio 16
THEATRE IS ONE place where challenging and provocative subject matter can be mined. That’s exactly the case with Heroes of the Fourth Turning, which takes on a topic rarely seen on-stage: Christian conservatism.
A Pulitzer Prize finalist written by Will Arbery, the play centres on four young conservatives who gather to toast the newly inducted president of their small Catholic college one week after the Charlottesville riots in 2017; that was when a white-supremacist terrorist attack occurred and a man deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people peacefully protesting the Unite the Right rally, killing one person and injuring 35. The students’ reunion descends into spiritual calamity and a clash of generational politics.
Vancouver’s Mitch and Murray Productions is putting on the play at Studio 16 from January 31 to February 9. Artistic director Aaron Craven says that these kinds of characters are rarely represented within the theatre community and that their stories are typically not told with as much depth and humanity as Arbery—who was raised in a large conservative Christian family and attended a Catholic college himself—gives them.
“He wrote it in response to the first Trump presidency,” Craven says of Arbery in a phone interview with Stir. “He had a lot of creative types in blue state New York saying ‘How did he get elected?’ and he said ‘I can tell you how it happened because I know a lot of these people.’…What’s really interesting about this play is I feel like people of faith in a creative sense get depicted a certain way, and these people are anything but a monolith. They’re very, very different. They have different political views, they love to debate. These people are not ignorant; they’re highly educated, and there’s a lot of wit and intellectual ideas from what they studied in school. There’s a lot of arsenal behind their arguments, so it’s a fascinating look at the ‘other side’.
“We thought it would be a great play for Vancouver, being a liberal city,” Craven adds. “It’s not a celebration of religious folks by any stretch, but it’s also not a condemnation of them; it’s an examination. And it’s an incredible examination. He [Arbery] finds so much empathy within the play. The characters are human; they have infighting; they’re vulnerable; they’re flawed. It’s an incredibly and beautifully complex piece of theatre.”
With Donald Trump back in the White House and the western world’s political polarization, Craven notes that Heroes of the Fourth Turning couldn’t be more timely.
“I have been sitting here watching the global populist movement rise,” Craven says. “As Canadians, we love to criticize Americans, but the conservative uprising is happening here and in B.C., too.
“We are staring the climate emergency in the face—Los Angeles is burning—and I think if we are going to solve these huge problems, we have to find a way back to each other,” Craven adds. “Unless we start listening to each other, as uncomfortable as that is, if you can start from the fact that they’re humans and not make them monsters, that’s an initial step. I think this play is a real salve to all the tension that exists.”
Directed by John Murphy, the Mitch and Murray Productions show features performances by Craven, Elizabeth Barrett, Jennifer Clement, Nyiri Karakas, and David Kaye. Craven admits that the play isn’t for everyone, but it’s an example of the kind of bold programming that the company specializes in.
“Sometimes art is about making us look at something we don’t understand, something that is mysterious and elusive,” Craven says. “There are no clean villains and no clean heroes; there’s no prescription. We’re interested in exploring the nether regions, the nuances. I’ve never seen characters depicted in such an even-handed way. They’re not irredeemable; Arbery finds beauty in some extremely challenging situations.
“There are many different ways you can come and view this play,” he adds. “There’s no gratuitous nudity and nothing crazy physically, but there’s disturbing conversation. If somebody feels they don’t want to watch that, they shouldn’t come. But if you are game to feel like a fly on the wall and listen to incredible dialogue, you can jump on for the ride. You can try to find some kind of sympathy with these characters. But also it can be an academic exercise in just trying to listen and hear the ‘why’ behind how some of these people think. It’s really, really challenging in all the good senses.” 
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