Should marriage have an expiration date? Or is a negotiable, renewable lease in order?
After 50 years of togetherness, Nancy French, very nonchalantly and without fanfare, announces at the dinner table that she wants a divorce. Her husband Bill’s response, uttered calmly and between bites of food, is equally nonchalant and affirmative. But adult sons Ben and Brian are not all right with this announcement. What has happened to the “happy family” they believed in? And what has caused this sudden break in the routine rituals of a long marriage?
In Bess Wohl’s broad comedy, Grand Horizons, most of the laughter arises from the horrified reaction of the children to their octogenarian parents’ revelations about sex. Humor about the libidos of seniors takes on a whole other level when a mother vividly recounts – in lurid detail – her erotic evening with a high school flame to one of her grown sons. He nearly collapses with embarrassment. The other son nearly keels over in embarrassment at the sexting of his father to another woman.
Under the sturdy direction of Honest Pint co-founder, Susannah Hough, this entertaining family disruption drama hurdles along at a high pitch. As the couple’s adult children descend upon the Grand Horizons retirement community, they are frantic, almost histrionic in their attempts to find some rationale in their parents’ behavior. Dementia? No, it’s much more complicated than that.
Veteran performers Lenore Field and Paul Newell (both were in Honest Pint’s 2019 production of The Herd) trade barbs and convey the type of animosity that builds up in a marriage, especially one that seems to have become stagnant. Both are masterful at comic timing, often delivering deadpan, sardonic, responses to the hysteria thrown at them from their adult sons.
The sons, Ben (Brook North) and Brian (Kevin Varner) are thoroughly rattled by their mother’s announcement and their father’s seemingly passive acquiescence. Their over-the-top reactions serve as a counterpoint to the bland reactions of Nancy and Bill. Jess (Loramarev Jones), Ben’s pregnant wife, attempts to bring some calm to the situation since she is a professional therapist. Jones offers an engaging portrait of a soon-to-be mother wrestling with the changes that are happening with the impending birth. Thomas Porter as Tommy, Brian’s late night pickup, and Dorothy Recasner Brown as Carla, Bill’s new friend, round out this lively cast.
Wohl’s play humorously and poignantly covers a lot of ground, effectively capturing the bittersweet note of a family having to let go of what they thought they knew of each other.
In the end, there’s healing to be done, but the bridge-building has started. There’s a lot of repair and rediscovering that needs to happen – we don’t see an ending, but a beginning for these characters.
The Honest Pint Theatre production of Grand Horizons runs through June 1. For more information visit https://www.honestpinttheatre.org/.