Toronto-based actor, producer and writer Ruth Goodwin is currently taking on the role of Teresa in the Canadian premiere of Heroes of the Fourth Turning, the Pulitzer play finalist and multi-award winning play by Will Arbery, who is also known for his screenwriting on HBO’s multi-award-winning corporate family drama Succession. Directed by Philip Akin, this production is co-presented by The Howland Company and Crow’s Theatre.
The story takes place on a chilly night in the middle of America, one week after the Charlottesville riots in 2017. Four alumni – Justin (Mac Fyfe), Teresa (Goodwin), Kevin (Cameron Laurie) and Emily (Hallie Seline) – gather to toast their mentor Gina (Maria Ricossa), the newly inducted President of their conservative Catholic college. In a look at the heart of a country at war with itself, their reunion spirals into spiritual chaos, clashing politics and haunting revelations as the five grapple with their beliefs and sense of personal responsibility. The play is talky, dense and intense. While the five principals can all be described as conservative White Americans, they reveal themselves to be articulate individuals who are animated by significant differences in the nature, consistency and substance of their conservatism.
As Goodwin prepared to bring Teresa to life on the stage, we sat down to explore her thoughts on the play and her character. Asked what she would like readers to know about her, she offers a pithy introduction: “I’m an actor and a Founding Member of The Howland Company, and I had peanut butter on toast for breakfast this morning.” We then turn to the play.
The character Goodwin portrays in Heroes of the Fourth Turning is a “complicated character” with strong convictions. “I don’t think I’ve ever played someone I disagree with so vehemently before, so it’s been a real challenge to find my way into her,” she admits. Teresa as an alumna of the Catholic Transfiguration College of Wyoming, who has become a pro-Trump, Steve Bannon-loving ultra-conservative media personality and writer. A self-described “poster boy” for American Conservatism, she is highly educated in political and Christian philosophy, and is convinced that Western civilization is on the brink of war between the degenerate liberals and the conservative true Americans. “She’s sharp and savvy; she can argue her way through anything, but she’s also deeply lonely and very lost,” explains Goodwin. Playing Teresa has been a true test: “I think ultimately what drew me to her was the challenge of playing someone so hard on the outside and so broken inside.”
Overall, Goodwin acknowledges that the experience of watching Heroes of the Fourth Turning is undoubtedly challenging for many. The subject matter includes triggering language and exclusionary rhetoric, which will provoke strong and divergent audience responses. And what most hits home for Goodwin is how the play mirrors the reality of many people in the United States and Canada today: “To be honest, the fact that the play even exists and that these characters are so true to many people living in the United States and Canada right now is what’s been the hardest pill for me to swallow with this play” she notes.
“Will Arbery said that he was inspired to write Heroes after Trump was elected and his liberal peers kept asking in shock, ‘who even elected this guy?!’ And that was my mentality in 2016, as well”, she continues. “But these politics are out there (in higher numbers than I confess I was aware of before 2016).” So Goodwin set about finding the humanity in the play’s characters, who are in fact “just as confused and vulnerable and in search of love and happiness as I am.” “So putting aside my own opinions and finding that heart” – accessing that apolitical emotional core – “is the real challenge.”
Indeed, one of the central themes of the play is empathy, and her character Teresa is not a fan of it. In a memorable screed, she avers that: “Empathy is empty… Empathize with someone, and suddenly you’re erasing the boundaries of your own conscience, suddenly you’re living under the tyranny of their desires.” Goodwin is still working on developing and deepening her own empathy for Teresa. And having met people like Teresa, she offers that “I’m working on my empathy with them, as well”. After a pause, in a thoughtfully empathetic afterthought, she offers that “if there’s one thing Teresa and I have in common, it’s that we are both works in progress”.
The Howland Company has a reputation for selecting plays that resonate with the current socio-political climate, and Heroes of the Fourth Turning is no exception. In Goodwin’s view, staging this production now is important because it addresses conversations happening right now not only in America, but also in Canada. The play shines a floodlight on the increasing polarization of society, where viewpoints are more siloed and divided than ever – a phenomenon that has been magnified and accelerated by pandemic isolation, social media algorithms and now artificial intelligence. The antidote is simple to understand, but oh-so difficult to do: “It’s important that we listen to each other and we try, as hard as it is, to understand what the other side is thinking. This is actually something my character Teresa also says in the play, and maybe one of her only arguments I agree with.”
In the hands of the Howland Company and Crow’s Theatre, Heroes of the Fourth Turning promises Toronto audiences a remarkably dense and challenging experience – with Goodwin’s Teresa at the centre of it talking, talking . . . and talking some more. “It’s rare to see a piece of theatre (which I think I can say is generally attended by liberal audiences) that shines a light so brightly on young conservative politics in this way,” Goodwin notes. “But as an artist, I think it’s important that theatre doesn’t become as siloed and algorithmed as social media. That’s not what it was created for. It was created as an opportunity for people with different political views, backgrounds, and life experiences to gather together, share physical space, breathe the same air, and connect through the humanity presented on stage.”
The run of Heroes of the Fourth Turning is attracting such interest that, ahead of its opening, it was extended to October 29, 2023. The approximate running time is 2 hours without intermission. For information, including content warning and to reserve tickets online, visit howlandcompanytheatre.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesayarts Magazine, 2023
