The Big Conversation: A Nomad and a Hero Discuss HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING

Kevin (Josh Schell) and Theresa (Ash Malloy) having their Big Conversation in Heroes of the Fourth Turning at SF Playhouse. Photo by Jessica Palopoli.

Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning is a play about people having long, passionate discussions that also seems designed to trigger long, passionate discussions among theatergoers. After we both saw the SF Playhouse production of Heroes in recent weeks, my friend Stuart Bousel and I took to Facebook Messenger and then, to a Google doc to work out how the play made us think and feel. So gather around our virtual firepit and explore this play with us.

MARISSA: I'm glad you liked Heroes of the Fourth Turning. I went with my book club last week and... a lot of them really couldn’t stand it. “Nothing happened in it, the characters were one-dimensional, I don’t believe that people like that exist.”  But I really think it's one of my favorite recent scripts. Though admittedly, I do have a weakness for plays where on the surface it’s a heady intellectual/moral debate and underneath it’s just a fucked-up love quadrangle.

STUART: Well, and I have a weakness for plays that are about people who you think you know, who turn out to be more complicated than your conception of them. I’m expecting a lot of people in the Bay Area to front at the humanity with which the conservative side was presented. And the ideological diversity that was presented as well. I think there is a tendency on the left to believe the right is entirely in alignment, which is not true. They vote in alignment and that’s why they’re more efficient than we are, but they’re not at all in alignment with one another when it comes to worldview or how they pick their friends or live their lives day-to-day. 

MARISSA: Meanwhile I’m out here like "I’ve seen SO many liberal playwrights write bad plays about righteous liberals clashing with straw-man conservatives and thank God that this wasn't that.” Moreover, even though the characters are on the opposite side of the political spectrum from me, they were still weirdly relatable to me as a Millennial. If Theresa is 29 years old in summer 2017, she's basically the same age as me. And for instance, the conflict between Theresa and her professor struck me as a very true portrait of Millennials vs. Boomers. The way the professor ends by urging all the younger characters not to be so “dark and complicated,” to strive for peace and happiness… it’s 100% well-intentioned, but it feels so inadequate to the very real distress they’re going through. And I feel like I’ve heard that same kind of “look on the bright side” advice, so much, from the Boomers in my own life. When I told my parents I’d seen a play called Heroes of the Fourth Turning and really liked it, their first question was “Does it end on a hopeful note?” I’m not kidding.

STUART: Justin graduated high school in 1997. I was the year before, 1996. And frankly, it was nice to see a character who was a (late) Gen X’er because as far as the entire planet is concerned, but especially theater, we like… don’t exist. But I found all the characters relatable. 

MARISSA: I guess some people feel like life is a constant dark night of the soul around a backyard firepit and other audience members just don’t get it  ;-)

STUART: Ha ha ha. We should write about it. Like, this is an important thing for liberals to hear. And theater makers. And liberal theater makers. Who aren’t us. Because we obviously do hear these things. Because we’re having this conversation. 

MARISSA: I don't even know if my attitude is so much "liberals should see this play to understand conservatives" as it is "millennials should see this play to see something that takes us and our deep confusion and angst seriously." Because I feel like the stereotype of millennial theater is, like, “Haha, Millennials! Tinder! Avocado toast!” And it's SO nice to be taken seriously instead.

STUART: I agree. I love a play that recognizes that your generation has depth, against all odds and evidence to the contrary, and that my generation exists, against all attempts to wipe us off the face of the earth. Including our own. I actually think this play is about liberals, about challenging the left’s perceptions of the right. But I value that it’s not mean to the people it is depicting: the right. That said, in the interest of a balanced critique, I didn’t care for the deer in scene 1, or the generator that turned out to be a ghost or unexplained paranormal activity or whatever. All of that was silly and unnecessary and I would have loved the play just a bit more if it were fifteen minutes shorter, but the core conflicts of the play were resonant and well realized. It’s an A- instead of an A+ and that’s still an A. 

MARISSA: Yeah, there are some trims that could happen. I think the deer & the generator were supposed to further deepen the angst and dread... but there's probably enough angst and dread even without that. Or maybe Will Arbery worried that without those elements, the play wouldn’t be ‘theatrical’ enough. Some of the friends that I saw this play with thought that it is just a bunch of people sitting around talking, so it would work better as a closet drama or a radio play. But, like… is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf theatrical enough? Isn’t there a venerable American tradition of "long drunken nights where everyone's illusions get horribly shattered" plays?

STUART: Yes. Especially if all the characters are white. 

MARISSA: Haha, true. You know, I WOULD like to see some POC variants of that story structure, but I'm still glad Arbery went ahead and wrote this.

STUART: I feel like we're getting more of those plays from diverse communities but I too want to see it from, you know, everybody. There’s this perception that existential and personal dread is the province of certain identities and that’s just not true. Every culture, every identity, wrestles with these basic questions of who am I, what is the role I play in a larger conversation, is there a God, who gets to speak for God, is it me, am I worthy, what if I’m not, etc. And on some level I am disappointed that one thing this play didn't have was some person of color who identifies as conservative or Catholic or both. I grew up in Arizona and I have a fair number of Mexican friends who are pretty damn Catholic, and some are also Republican, and again, there’s this idea that the right is snowy snowy white and that’s not true. And you know that if you’ve lived outside of major coastal cities, but it seems rare that it’s depicted in theater and film and tv. Anyway, I also liked that two of the characters were profoundly religious, but in many ways politically and personally liberal because that's real too. I know many Christians who are actually far more tolerant and politically left on a variety of issues than many of the atheists and progressives I know here. And there are definitely historical examples to point to, like Daniel Berrigan. 

MARISSA: I should note here that I was raised Catholic but in the liberal Catholic tradition, the kind that had great, great respect for Jesuits like Berrigan. And because of my background, it always bothers me that many secular American liberals think that Christianity equals conservative Christianity equals the worst forms of evangelicalism. That all Christians are dumb anti-intellectuals shouting about Jesus. But the Catholic intellectual tradition is really interesting and even the most conservative characters in this play have done the reading and thought deeply about it.

STUART: I also liked that the Boomer character was as thoughtful as she was out of touch, and that her ideals were based in values that most people probably would get behind if presented in a way that felt more inclusive. Short version: the strength of the play lay in its nuanced characters who were equal parts relatable and equal parts frustrating.

MARISSA: And of course it’s one of those ensemble plays where the focus can shift between the characters.

STUART: Yeah, though since it begins with Justin and the deer, and it ends on Emily and Justin, the play clearly thinks it’s about them. But in a lot of ways it’s really Theresa’s play.

MARISSA: It’s interesting, so in the summer of 2020, the First Pandemic Summer, the New York cast of Heroes reunited and did the play on Zoom. It actually worked really well, it’s one of my favorite Zoom-theater memories, since it is so dialogue-driven and the actors knew their characters so thoroughly, having played them in Fall 2019. But anyway, in 2020, I felt like the standout role was Theresa. I mean, she’s so forceful, she’s the most strident conservative and therefore the most “love to hate them” for a liberal audience, and of course she gets the monologue explaining the play’s title. But this time around, and I’m not quite sure why, I felt it was more Kevin’s play.

STUART: I've been thinking about it and I really related to Kevin.

MARISSA: Sending <3 and sympathy. I mean Kevin is a great character but he's really Going Through It.

STUART: Yeah, but so am I.

MARISSA: Well, yeah ;-)

STUART: The play reminded me of my Arizona friends, and my SF friends, and my Reed friends. And in all of those different contexts and eras, I'm more or less Kevin, even when he's not going through it. Like I know what Kevin is like in a non-shit phase of his life, and that’s similar to me, both who I am, and the role I tend to play in circles of my peers. He's visionary, and he cares about people, and he falls in love with everyone and he wants everyone to have a place at the table, even people he doesn’t agree with, and he’s mystified and hurt when he feels like he’s not being heard, because from his perspective, he’s actually saying the thing people keep saying that they’re saying. But of course, they’re really not. And if he's going through it, that’s partly because he's very vulnerable. He's very strong, but he's strong inside, not armored outside, like Theresa is. 

MARISSA: I will say that at your best, you seem a lot more able to execute on your visions and build the community that you need than Kevin does. Like, I can't imagine him running an annual theater festival for a decade. Or whatever the conservative Catholic equivalent of that would be.

STUART: Kevin probably couldn't imagine it for himself either. But the president of the college sees his potential, and it really hit home when she offers him an interview for the Dean of Admissions job and his friends are like “you'd suck at that” and I was like, actually, he'd be great at that. Because he would see the value of a diverse body of students, because he himself doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of them. Also, I loved that moment he reveals that he knows Theresa and Justin fucked, and he wasn’t the one who told on them. Because people tell me shit all the time, and I’m always like “now I know and I have to live with that. Thanks.” But what I really relate to with Kevin is that everybody in my whole life has had a plan for me. My parents, my relatives, my teachers, so many expectations. I was actually really glad Kevin didn't turn out to be gay (I thought they were gonna go there for a hot second and Justin was gonna turn out to be his secret crush) but in a way, all gay people really do grow up being told "This is who you are” and it really fucks us up.

MARISSA: Oh interesting.

STUART: I get that lots of kids get pressured to be lawyers, or doctors, or priests for that matter, but when you're gay, you almost always are being pressured to be heterosexual. If not by your parents or immediate circles per se, then at the very least, by the bulk of mainstream society. And that feels so wrong but it's a long time before you're able to articulate WHY. Maybe less so for gay kids now. Being LGBTQ is more pervasively presented as a viable way to be, but I suspect that even in a more tolerant society, it’s rare that parents don't autodefault to assuming their kid is hetero until otherwise notified. So, even the gay kids of today probably have to figure it out on their own, still, which is… a journey… and then when you do figure out that this is why you are different, your mind kind of gets blown and there isn’t much in the way of mentorship that isn't also kind of predatory and uggggh this is a whole thing. Anyway, I get that Kevin is finding himself. And I loved that he's the one who is like, "Can't we be Catholic and not be Republican?" Like... THAT is a very me perspective.

MARISSA: Haha, I loved his question "Why is the Virgin Mary such a big deal?" -- because that’s something my nominally Catholic mother would say all the time. I think she has some unresolved feelings about being named Mary. But yeah, Kevin’s a mess but at least he is questioning something? reaching for something?

STUART: And he doesn't back down about THAT. He's the prophet of the group, really

MARISSA: Oh whoa, does this mean that each of the 4 younger characters is supposed to be one of the 4 generational archetypes that Theresa discusses in her monologue? Cause Prophet is one of the archetypes, in addition to Hero. 

STUART: I think so. And that Theresa's blindness is that she's, IRONICALLY, the Artist. Because obviously Emily is the actual hero, in that people like her are obviously the only ones with real potential to bridge the divide between Them and Not Them. And the Gen X dude is the Nomad, Theresa is correct about that.

MARISSA: I hadn’t considered that angle but I really like it. Actually, each of their professions reinforce this analysis. Emily was doing social work, that’s "heroic." Justin is totally the nomad, he’s a cowboy who wants to go be a monk in Italy. Kevin is going to take the Dean of Admissions job that was offered to him by the Baby Boomer character (and Boomers are the “real” Prophet generation) and uphold and build the institution of the college. And Theresa writes for a website, she’s the only one of them who could be considered a member of the "creative class," though she'd probably hate that appellation.

STUART: And she wants to be the hero so badly... which is often the secret desire of the artist. What artist doesn't struggle with some form of “what am I doing that's actually worthy of like... being considered ‘real’ work?” And of course she needs approval from the very shoulders she's standing on and critiquing and wanting to upend-- but also, essentially, to be. 

MARISSA: I'm realizing that while I may have related to this play on the level of Catholicism, you must've related to it on the level of someone who went to an unusual college and still really identifies with it. You still talk about “being a Reedie”!

STUART: Yes, and weirdly, yesterday, my Reed friend Sarah was in town and we went to Sutro Baths and spent a lot of time talking about how it was really amazing that we had that experience but it may have also fucked us up forever.

MARISSA: Haha, you had a Big Conversation like Kevin and Theresa.

STUART: Well, I think any time you get together with someone from another era of your life-- and everything pre-pandemic now feels like another era, but anyone from more than a few years back, or from before a major life change–the Big Conversation is bound to happen. Especially if you’ve been out of touch for a while. It’s why you’re much more likely to sleep with your ex if you haven’t stayed friends but run into them in a bar or an airport after a few years. A sudden reappearance often triggers a delayed catharsis. Especially if there’s booze, starlight and/or the Moon, and firepits. Firepits are THE WORST if you’re trying not to spill your guts about everything disappointing and horrible about your life. 

Heroes of the Fourth Turning is at SF Playhouse through March 5, 2022.