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Will ArberysHeroes of the Fourth Turningis so frighteningly well written, its hard to write about.
Youre not ready for it yet.
Youre still in Arberys world murky yet lit by lightning, lyrical and scary, brave and terribly gentle.
Coming out of the whole thing is like waking to a bucket of water thrown in your face.
But even that jolt feels right in its way, becauseHeroesis a kind of nightmare.
Instead, were asked to consider, critically, the empathizing impulse.
Liberals are empathy addicts.
Teresa (Zoe Winters), like everyone inHeroes, is a zealous Catholic conservative.
One might, sans empathy, call her rabid.
Its not shouting; its listening.
Thats how it sidesteps the empathy headache while remaining exquisitely humane.
Its for us to seeher and Kevin, and Emily, and Justin.
Even in the light, youve got to strain a little to see them.
But if nothing else, honest about the darkness.
How did I become a virus?
reads another epigraph to the play, taken from lyrics by the singer Anohni.
Hopelessness I feel the hopelessness.
Theres alsolike Chekhovs breaking stringa terrifying noise that sounds repeatedly during the play.
And the marvelous scene in which their patron saint finally arrives is a dizzying deep dive into why.
Pawks glowing Dr. Presson fancies herself an alma mater.
She is, at once, benevolent and intelligent, and a builder of broken human beings.
She is one of the well-meaning architects of her proteges war.
All five actors are ablaze in Danya Taymors swift, measured, deliciously tense production.
The fearless Winters gives Teresa a Joan of Arcs zeal for all the most appalling ideas.
And Zdrojeskis tall, collapsing frame is shot through with chaotic despair as Kevin.
If theres a war coming, then why is Catholicism all about sex?
he moans in the face of Teresas avowal that theytheir whole generationare, by birth and fate, heroes.
They have been taught, in the language of faith and love, how to fear and despise.
They are articulate, but their bodies and souls are screaming.
And in Arberys stunning play, even in the rush of articulation, we always feel the scream.
Heroes of the Fourth Turningis at Playwrights Horizons through November 17.
This is my final review as the full-time theater critic forNew YorkMagazine and Vulture.com.
That I dont aspire to solve.
My preoccupations as a director have, for the past two years, informed my criticism.
The Los Angeles critic Sylvie Drake calls criticism directing backwards.
It is that, but at its best, it builds too.
Critic and director must both articulate a vision and relate it to the wider world.
Both are authors, whether of an argument or an event.
Im off now to a different kind of dreaming.
