Capital Stage Presents “Heroes of the Fourth Turning”

by Chris Narloch

Sacramento’s Capital Stage has a well-deserved reputation for presenting provocative plays that some other local theaters avoid. Kudos to them for bringing thought-provoking theater to River City. That said, I found the company’s latest production — of Will Arbery’s “Heroes of the Fourth Turning” — very disappointing.

A terrific cast featuring some of our finest local actors (including Jamie Jones and Ian Hopps) and the talented director Michael Stevenson turn in first-rate work, but the play itself is an edgy, ambitious drama that I found pretentious and annoying. It focuses on a group of young Catholic intellectuals who reunite at their college in Wyoming and end up airing some “dirty laundry” and discussing the current culture wars and political upheaval in our country.

What I found most egregious about the work was the exceedingly overwritten and overwrought (and often unrealistic) speechifying that passes for dialogue in the play. The castmembers each get to command the stage at different points with the type of lengthy diatribes (monologues really) that actors love, and I cannot fault the performers, but Arbery’s speeches often felt false and phony to me, especially the shocking final one delivered by a character with chronic pain.

I should add that this play, which runs almost two and a half hours with no intermission, received mostly positive reviews off-Broadway and was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in drama, but I couldn’t wait for it be over.

“Heroes of the Fourth Turning” performs through April 16th. For more information, go to https://capstage.org