Review - Grand Horizons

I am so tired and running in place trying to catch up that I almost let this season's only new play on Broadway written by a woman get by me.  Thankfully, I found the energy to see the next-to-last performance of Grand Horizons.  I got a discounted ticket at almost the last minute and happily I was seated in the orchestra.  However, it is FREEZING in the back of the orchestra at the Helen Hayes Theatre (which I had forgotten).  But I just wrapped my scarf around my neck and settled in.  For the most part, I enjoyed myself, though I admit to feeling that I wished for something more (and that is entirely on me and no one else)...


I saw one of the playwright's previous Off-Broadway efforts, Small Mouth Sounds, a few years ago and simply loved it.  I thought it was bold and audacious, so I was expecting something that bold and audacious in Grand Horizons.  What I got instead was a pretty old-fashioned boulevard comedy, played at high energy and high speed for big laughs.  That's ok, but it wasn't what I expected (which, again, is totally on me) and so I was vaguely dissatisfied.  The play WAS funny and terrifically acted, I just didn't see the compelling reason for putting this play on Broadway.  Though, I guess if making it a Broadway play meant we got to see Jane Alexander and James Cromwell, then maybe it was probably worth it.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

Alexander and Cromwell play Nancy and Bill, a long-married couple living in an upper middle class retirement community; at the start, we see a silent ritual we know is played out every night, where she is preparing dinner and he is helping get the table ready.  They finally sit down, after the perfectly choreographed ritual, and then Nancy, very politely, states that she wants a divorce.  After a pause, Bill says, "All right."  It's all very polite and sedate and the audience cracks up at the juxtaposition.  End of first scene.

The rest of the play is Bill and Nancy justifying their reasons for divorce to their adult sons, one of whom is married and expecting the first grandchild, the other of whom is a high school theater teacher.  Neither son can comprehend why their parents would want to split up at this stage of their lives and they're having high comic difficulty processing the news.  They also have high comic difficulty when their parents start to talk about their sexual needs.  I have to admit I vacillated over wondering if it was cliche writing to have Jane Alexander talk so graphically about sex, knowing it would make the audience laugh to see such a patrician older woman talk about naughty things.  Would it have been just as funny with a different actress?  I don't know.  There was quite a bit of that kind of vacillating happening in my mind throughout the play.  And I think there were maybe two scenes that I didn't really need, though having Priscilla Lopez on stage is always a treat (her character reminded me a bit of Anita Gillette's character in the film Moonstruck, which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

So, I guess now would be the place where I say that my parents' names are Nancy and Bill, so that freaked me out/cracked me up just a little, to be honest.  I'd like to think that were my parents to announce they were getting a divorce, I wouldn't lose my shit like the two kids in the play did.  I say kids - both of these gents are in their mid- to late-30s, I think.  Maybe the playwright is making a comment on how men never grow up...hmmmm, I just thought of that.  But after a while, I didn't think the guys were funny, I just thought they were annoying, immature, selfish jerks.  So there's that.

There was one plot point that made everyone in the audience laugh, except me, and it really only needed one little tweak to make it work for me, too.  Michael Urie played the high school theater teacher son and part of his shtick is that he doesn't want to disappoint any of his students, so there are 200 kids in the school production of The Crucible that he is currently directing.  I was having dinner with a playwright friend last week and she mentioned this plot point had made her see red as well, so a tip of the hat to her for giving me advance warning.  No, actually, it is not sweet to want to cast 200 kids in The Crucible, it's technically not even legal.  Arthur Miller didn't write that.  If only one other character had said, "wait, that's not legal, is it?", or "you can't do that, can you?", then I could've laughed along.  If one audience member decides to now do that because it sounded so funny, then we might have a problem.  And when I say 'we,' I mean 'me.'  Which I totally know is a complete silly overreaction.  Oh, and I had a little bit of a squeamish thought that the non-wacky people in the play who kept telling the family that they were wacky were the actors of color.  I appreciate that the cast was diverse, but the weirdo white family learning something from the characters who happened to be played by actors of color stood out for me, in a vaguely negative way.  Perhaps I'm just overthinking things (yet again).

I did laugh throughout Grand Horizons and I did appreciate the actors very much, so seeing the production was mainly an enjoyable experience.  I know the fact that my expectations were for something rather different is completely my fault, though I can't help but wonder if I either missed something or if this play exists merely to be funny.  And there's nothing wrong with that.  I can see this play having a huge life in the regions and in community theaters around the country, which is great.  But when every now and then something else, something deeper, was hinted at, like the inevitable process of women becoming invisible as they age (and the daughter-in-law's realization of it), or adult children realizing they're missing something in their life because of what they saw growing up, I felt a little twinge of sadness that I wasn't really seeing a deeper exploration of that kind of narrative thread.  Which, again, I know makes it my play and my problem and not the playwright's.

Seat neighbor story that shows what a dope I am:  I frequently confuse actors Darren Criss and Michael Urie.  Please don't ask me why.  So the fact that Darren Criss was in the audience of the show that Michael Urie was in sort made my head spin.  My head also spun a bit at the sound design of the show - at one point, characters make reference to the loud tv playing in the neighbor's apartment, but a lot of the time I couldn't tell if the sound was coming from the stage or my seat neighbors' cell phones.  I guess it didn't really matter either way, but it was a little disorienting.  All in all, I'm grateful to have seen Jane Alexander on stage again, she has long been a favorite of mine (I thought she was amazing in Albee's The Lady from Dubuque) and I always enjoy James Cromwell.  I guess I just need to recalibrate my brain and relearn to watch what I'm watching and not make things try to fit in the box I've created for them.  Clearly, it's a long process for me...