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Theatre

Heroes of the Fourth Turning

Religious conservatism’s sorrow and solitude
by •
ABR Arts • 28 March 2022
Theatre

Heroes of the Fourth Turning

Religious conservatism’s sorrow and solitude
by •
ABR Arts • 28 March 2022
Mollie Mooney, Darcy Kent, and Charlie Cousins in <em>Heroes of the Fourth Turning</em> (photograph by Jodie Hutchinson)
Mollie Mooney, Darcy Kent, and Charlie Cousins in Heroes of the Fourth Turning (photograph by Jodie Hutchinson)

Not long into Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning a character brings out an acoustic guitar and is asked to play a song. He chooses Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Nothin’’, a melancholy ballad pulled from the annals of American folk music. When it was released in 1971, many assumed it represented Van Zandt’s struggle with drug addiction. In fact, as he explained two years before his death, the song was inspired by Nikos Kazantzakis’s The Last Temptation of Christ, a novel banned by the Catholic Church in 1955 for representing a Christ figure prone to human fallibilities.

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Guy Webster

Guy Webster is an academic and writer living on unceded Wurundjeri land. His work has been published by ABR, Overland, Metro Magazine, Kill Your Darlings, and The Conversation. He is currently finishing his doctorate at the University of Melbourne.

Leave a comment
Guy Webster

Guy Webster is an academic and writer living on unceded Wurundjeri land. His work has been published by ABR, Overland, Metro Magazine, Kill Your Darlings, and The Conversation. He is currently finishing his doctorate at the University of Melbourne.

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Comment (1)

  • An exceptionally considered and informed review. Thank you, Guy Webster and ABR. As a member of the Red Stitch ensemble who is, therefore, a producer of this production (not in the detail of its creation but in the programming of its, um, being), I couldn’t be more grateful for your careful attention. It’s a fine production. I salute the brilliant playwright and all who gave it such vibrant life on our tiny stage. Red Stitch has struggled—and laughed and argued and, occasionally, rejoiced—for twenty years and we take untold pride in the best of our productions that have added to the, um, cultural wealth of our Melbourne. This "Heroes" is, I think, an addition to our list of the best and bravest.
    Posted by Dion Mills
    28 March 2022

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