by Richard Lord
Bess Wohl is widely acknowledged to be one of America’s most talented contemporary playwrights. Still relatively young, Wohl has scored a number of theatrical successes, awards and honors, but her biggest success to date has been the prickly comedy Grand Horizons. This play garnered nominations for Best Play and Best Actress at last year’s Tony Awards, and has spawned numerous follow-on productions across the country.
Grand Horizons examines the phenomenon of “gray divorce”, referred to in some circles as the Seventies Years Itch. It refers to couples getting divorced late in their marriage, after years together. It’s a trend on an upward arc: the divorce rates for people over 50 in the US have doubled over the last thirty years and are predicted to triple by the end of this decade. As Psychology Today says, the trend is “creating a seismic shift in American families”, and Bess Wohl addresses this seismic shift in her biggest play yet. People’s Light in Malvern has now brought the work to our area,something we should be quite grateful for.
Bill and Nancy French are a 70-something couple residing in Grand Horizons, an independent living district for seniors. Grand Horizons is one of those senior living communities notable for its Identikit housing and sunset-years amenities. The name ‘Grand Horizons’ is actually archly ironic, as the community is meant primarily for people with shrinking rather than grand horizons.
The play opens with Nancy and Bill French setting the table for dinner. Not a single word passes between the two as each goes about his and her appointed duties with mechanical torpor. In a gesture of bland affection, Bill even turns the vase with flowers so it sits more in Nancy’s favor.
A few bites into their dinner, Nancy casually announces “I think I would like a divorce.” After a moment, Bill replies, “Alright”, as if Nancy had said that she would like to have some vanilla ice milk for dessert. Lights down.
Light come up again to find the couple’s two sons and daughter-in-law engaged in emergency intervention to save their parents’ obviously damaged marriage. The quintet soon discovers that what they had long tricked themselves into believing was a reasonably functioning household was actually a fairly dysfunctional family.
For the next two-and-a-half hours, playwright Wohl turns a spotlight on the five members of the French family, juiced up slightly with brief appearances from two side players. What could have been a dreary saga of a disintegrating marriage and its collateral damage (the now adult children) is instead turned into a deliciously wry comedy that shows how skillful a dramatist Bess Wohl is.
Early on, we feel that Nancy and Bill’s marriage has been on a steady slide to the point of doom, and for a crucial reason: Nancy has decided to resist those shrinking horizons of her life, while Bill is ready to accept them, just as long as the shrinking doesn’t come too quickly. Of the divorce at this late date, he informs his children that if it had been his choice, “I would have just slogged it out.”
Playwright Wohl is able to find humor in places where pain is usually stored. We in the audience smile and laugh so quickly than we don’t have time to wince at what we’re seeing and hearing.
Even though the script allows for steady streams of laughter, Wohl does realize that the subject matter is not simply fodder for jokes. There are moments when the emotional charge reaches a combustible point, and the play either has to get serious for short stretches or turn into an adult cartoon. Wohl takes the former option. For instance, when Brian (the younger son) doesn’t want to hear any more of Nancy’s revelations about her sexuality and capacity for defiant emotions, she insists that he listen. “I will be a whole person to you. I will.”
The central serious message in this play is that after 50 years of marriage and almost as many as a mother, Nancy still needs to assert herself in order to be seen as a whole person. The central thrust of Grand Horizons is that she’s finally taking steps to do just that.
Bess Wohl made a judicious choice in giving the Frenches two sons and no daughters. Being sons, they love their mother, but can’t fully appreciate all the struggles she’s had to go through. That task is left for daughter-in-law Jess.
However, Wohl’s undeniable skills as a dramatist does have one or two lapses. The biggest comes when Ben, the older son, undergoes an explosive reaction to the one of Nancy’s revelations. concerning a certain Hal that seems out of tone for his character and not really justified by the situation. It does, however, provide actor Dante Alexander the opportunity to demonstrate his acting chops.
The People’s Light production is a demonstration of the fact that a show’s direction and the audience watching are significant parts of how a play actually plays. Director Jackson Gay’s excellent direction brings out out all the comic elements in Bess Wohl’s script and beyond. But even though Gay’s direction milks just about every opportunity for humor, it never descends into cheap laughs or slapstick. True, it comes close at points, but always a sure hand at the helm to make the comic credible all the way through.
The audience is not simply a passive element in this production. The opening day audience found the opening moments of the play humorous, and when Bill dropped his “Alright” response to Nancy’s stated wish for a divorce, the laughter started cascading. The laughter then continued in a steady stream throughout the performance. Even something as mundane as Nancy’s making Bill a sandwich gets laughs because of the way it’s staged and how the audience receives the action.
The connection between audience and performers actually infused the performances continued as well. When the comedy in a show is working well, as it was at that opening performance, the actors slip into a groove that makes seemingly flat lines funny and facial gestures or a side glance a source of laughter. That’s what we got out there on the opening afternoon in Malvern.
For instance, towards the end of the play, Bill says, “Parenthood can be very rewarding.” Even with all that has gone on up to that point, such a line can be delivered and taken in different ways. In the performance I saw, Bill (Peter DeLaurier) delivered it in a fairly earnest way – but it still reaped a big, audience-wide laugh. Such is the chemistry that can develop between an audience and the actors. I could easily see that line getting a totally different reaction at a different performance with a different audience.
Of course, you do need a troupe of first-rate actors to make this chemistry work, and the People’s Light cast of Grand Horizons is clearly first-rate.
The character of Nancy is, obviously, the central figure in the play, and Marcia Saunders serves up a virtuoso performance as Nancy. She handles the role with steady skill, showing the various facets of this character who keeps peeling back different layers of herself as the play proceeds.
Peter DeLaurier gave us a Bill perfectly poised between compliant disappointment with his situation and grasping at a nebulous hope that there’s something better waiting for him ahead.
DeLaurier’s Bill and Saunders’ Nancy are a marvelously mismatched pair whose awkwardness in expressing emotions and refusal to seek what they still can find in each other adds a melancholy to the whole affair. What we see here is not a marriage collapsing, but crumpling up into something that can finally be tossed aside – or maybe not. The two actors show us how this process can be both depressing and comical.
Dante Alexander plays Ben as someone who wants to believe he has it all together, and then proceeds to demonstrate how not true this is, and in the process discovers himself and becomes more sympathetic as the paly reaches its climax. His delivery of the line when he tells Brian that Brian can teach his little nephew “about … what you do” is textbook.
Jenelle Chu as Jess, Ben’s wife, is also splendid. Jess is a counselor/therapist who comes on with a pre-packaged solution for saving the marriage. As she sees this solution failing, she also sees problems in her own marriage. It’s not long before she begins to identify with Nancy and refocus her attention to her marriage to Ben.
chu
As stated, Jenelle Chu gives us a splendid Jess. She manages to make the cant of counseling humorous but not ridiculous. Chu tracks the changes Jess experiences quite deftly as the character move on to a firmer ground for herself and her marriage.
One all too obvious flaw in Chu’s performance: Jess is highly pregnant, not too far off from delivery, yet Chu moves with the nimble grace of a woman who has recently returned from the gym. But even if she does not use her body movements appropriately, Chu does use her face wonderfully throughout to convey all the changes Jess must embrace.
Brian McManamon also gives a sterling performance as Brian. Brian is in many ways the most troubled character in the play, and McManamon handles this assignment quite well indeed, emoting with voice, body and facial gestures. At points, McManamon’s expression of Brian’s inner turmoils seem to hover at the edge of too much in order to achieve a comic effect. But almost always, the actor retreats just a notch or two before too much, providing a compelling portrait of the scared little guy trapped in an unhappy adult’s body.
Luis Augusto Figueroa is strong as Tommy, who arrives as a one-night stand for Brian and leaves as another notation of failure for Brian in the relationship column. The character’s main function is to further define the problems of Brian, but Figueroa brings more to the brief appearance of Tommy than just a functionary. His small part comes off as a strong character who could have shown even more if not chased away by Brian’s insecurities.
Zuleyma Guevara is also good as Carla, who is Bill’s little bit on the side. This is a challenging assignment – to make Carla convincing and sympathetic – and Guevara meets the challenge nicely.
And do remember that this is a first-rate comedy, so all the uncomfortable issues and familial unpleasantness is presented in a way that brings on laughs through most of the rocky journey.
Oh, we shouldn’t wrap up this review without mentioning one of the other stars of the production: the impressive set by Paul Whitaker. In fact, Whitaker designed not only the set, but also the lighting which showcases out the best features of the set. One feature that makes Whitaker’s set so impressive is that … Sorry, but I would be dropping a spoiler if I revealed that. Just be ready to enjoy the versatility of the set as you enjoy the entire People’s Light production. It was an excellent way for People’s Light to close out their 2021-2022 season.
Grand Horizons runs at the Leonard C. Haas Stage of People’s Light & Theatre, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern through Sunday, August 28th. Consult the theatre website or phone 610-644-3500 for times of the performances and other details.