Bill and Nancy have been married for 50 years. When Nancy, over dinner at their retirement community home, calmly tells Bill she wants a divorce, he answers, “Alright.” But when the couple’s sons hear about it, things become significantly less sedate.
Beaumont Community Players will present Bess Wohl’s dramedy “Grand Horizons,” opening April 5. The play debuted on Broadway in 2020, and director Julia Rodriguez said BCP is one of the first theaters in Texas to present the play.
“Grand Horizons” deals with family dynamics, Rodriguez said. The sons are shocked by the decision and come to talk them out of it.
“They’re like, no, no, no, you cannot make this decision. You cannot do this. You’re ruining our lives. Just stick it out,” Rodriguez said. “Because that’s just what happens when your parents get old. You feel like you know what’s best for them — or at least these kids do. That’s essentially the core drama; the parents are trying to make a decision and the children are interfering.”
Laura Chapman plays Nancy, a retired librarian.
“She’s been a person who followed the rules all her life and put others before herself for most, if not all, of her life,” Chapman said. “And now she’s finding out that she really doesn’t want that anymore. So, she’s breaking out a bit and feeling her oats.”
Bill is not a bad person, Chapman said, it’s just a relationship Nancy doesn’t want anymore.
“She may never have wanted it, but it is something that she more or less settled for,” Chapman said. “She’s just ready to move on, you know, she’s not getting what she needs from him.”
Nancy is a simple woman, Chapman said, but she’s brewing underneath.
“She has that lava flow going on and it’s going to erupt at some point,” Chapman said. “She’s seeing the end of her life, and she wants more than she’s had. And Bill’s not a person that’s really going to ask if she wants this sort of thing, and he may not even provide it to her even if he did ask.”
Glen Allen plays Bill, a former pharmacist, who Allen describes as a curmudgeon who is having a hard time dealing with the realities of getting old and settling into a staid and predictable life.
“I don’t know the reasons when she asks but I’m a nice guy, so I accommodate her, which just pisses her off more and makes her more determined to be independent,” Allen said. “I spend the play doing some untoward things, mostly to push her buttons, because what I want her to do is come to her senses and drop the whole idea and let us go back to us being us.”
Bill is taking a stand-up comedy class at Grand Horizons retirement home, working on his one liners, trying to be any young man, Allen said.
“He’s not very good at it, he was much better at counting pills,” Allen said. “(Bill’s) resentful. I’m hurt. And I’m acting like I am going to go along with this stupid thing. But what I really want is Nancy — the devil I know.”
While the central pairing drives the play, Rodriguez said “Grand Horizons” examines the ways different family interact with each other.
“I see myself and I see other people in my life in the show, but I also see what I’m doing wrong,” she said. “What can I do better to improve these relationships? There’s two generations of marriage relationships. There’s brothers, there’s fathers and sons, and sons and mothers. (I hope audiences) leave critically thinking about how they can improve their own relationships.”
The cast also includes Michael Saar, Amy Miller. David Williams, Janice Patillo and Ryan Sherer.
Chapman said the children, far from being helpful, are more of an irritant.
“Nancy’s glad they’re there for a visit but they’re basically just coming in and taking over, and she’s tired of taking care of them and listening to their problems,” Chapman said. “She has her own agenda. She wants to get on with her own life. So, they’re kind of a hindrance at this point, because she can’t get rid of them. I mean, she’s happy to see them, but she’s happier to see them go.”
Allen said Bill also has complicated feelings about his sons.
“I’ve got one son who’s successful at his job and I’m proud of him, but he spends more time in my life than he does in his own,” Allen said. “He is the oldest and he is his mama’s boy. My other son, I love him to death, but my God he’s a theater teacher. From my perspective, as a hard-working, never-call-in-sick pharmacist. that’s not a successful career.”
Rodriguez said the play is dramatic, but also has a lot of humor.
“There are some moments that that are laugh out loud, funny, but a lot of the humor is in the dynamics,” she said. “It’s in how they talk to each other. It’s in how they look at each other. It’s so relatable.”
Showtimes for “Grand Horizons” are 7:30 p.m., April 5, 6, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, and 2 p.m., April 13. BCP is located at 4155 Laurel Ave. in Beaumont. For more, visit beaumontstages.com.
This story first ran in the March 31 Art of Living section of The Beaumont Enterprise.
English with a bit of Texas 