Review: GRAND HORIZONS at Mildred's Umbrella

GRAND HORIZONS is a 2019 play by Bess Wohl that had a Broadway run the same year it debuted. Mildred’s Umbrella is presenting the regional debut through February 21st in a space on the second floor of Spring Street Studios. It’s an interesting, dramatic comedy about “gray divorce,” a trendy topic where older, more established couples have seen a dramatic increase in splits in recent years. The play opens with a rather long silent sequence of a couple getting ready for dinner, and the first words we hear are “I want a divorce” from the wife and “Alright” from the husband. Bess Wohl has constructed a marriage comedy, the kind that has always been popular since even the 30s and 40s with BRINGING UP BABY and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. Wohl’s text seems more tonally akin to a contemporary Neil Simon with a touch of farce, and it delivers quite a few inconvenient truths about long-term nuptials and their impact on an entire family. It’s funny, it’s clever, but it sometimes seems to get too caught up in itself as a script. Yet the acting here is top-notch, and the Mildred’s Umbrella production is a wonder in such a small space. Jennifer Decker’s direction is sublime (with able assistance from Scott Searles), and she has a solid cast. 

Every character in GRAND HORIZONS seems to see problems from only their own vantage point, and the fun is watching them all blindly lash out at each other without ever truly hearing or understanding anyone else in the room. That is the source of both the tragedy and the comedy, and is the speculated root cause of the rise of “gray divorce.” According to data, women are the most likely parties in a marriage to ask to end it. What makes this even more interesting is that men and women are equally likely to initiate a split if they are not married. The play lets the wife take the wheel through most of the narrative. GRAND HORIZONS delves into an unwillingness to spend the remaining decades in unhappy, stagnant, or unfulfilling relationships. It also considers our own self-involvement as a likely cause, since it seems no one can force you to be happy.  

It is a joy to watch veteran actor Jim Salners pair up with Julie Gersib to go toe-to-toe as Nancy and Bill, the elderly couple heading for a separation. They both have great chemistry, and they convey the impression that this is a couple that has been together forever and a day. It’s wildly fun to watch them lay everything out on the table in front of their family about why they need to be apart after fifty years of marriage. Christian Tannous is as likable as ever as Ben, the son with a therapist for a wife. He runs around in a brilliantly executed state of confusion. His more anchored wife is played by Christie Guidry, who gives us a pregnant livewire, who is cranky and full of misguided feminist indignation. Eddie Edge is the gay baby brother, and he is spun into full-on homosexual hysterics by the situation, which he shows great timing in delivering. On the fringes of each act, we have Alric Davis and Amy Warren providing crackerjack comic relief as characters caught in the middle of all this mess through romantic entanglements with key family members. They both steal the scenes they are in, and I wanted more of each. Edgar Guajardo’s set is impressively well-appointed inside this small studio, and he realizes a lot in just a little bit of space. Technically, this is an impressive work from direction, acting, and design.  

I had a really great time with GREAT HORIZONS. It’s always odd to call a divorce comedy fun, but there is a sitcom silliness to this affair that is charming. I know Bess Wohl aims to dig deeper than that, and in the final sequence, we do see her reveal her cards at how complex all of this truly is. It’s not all fun and games; there are real people under there. We get to see Jim Salners and Julie Gersib express what Nancy and Bill hide most of the play in an extended ending scene. That passage made me wonder why GRAND HORIZONS didn’t cut deeper from the jump, because for all the Neil Simon-ness of it all, there is something to be said and heard finally. I wish there were more of that. But I laughed, and it made me think. So, in that, this show is super successful. And Mildred’s Umbrella continues to be a company that can pull this off.