The Peterborough Players production of “Grand Horizons” by playwright Bess Wohl starts with more than a minute of silence.
Bill and Nancy, a married couple played by Players favorite Kathy Manfre and returnee Douglas Rees, prepare dinner and set the table. Bill fetches a pillow for Nancy’s chair. Nancy liberally salts Bill’s food for him, and despite her free hand with the shaker, he adds a bit more when her back is turned. They coordinate like dancers moving to a familiar song, the kind of familiarity that comes with five decades of marriage to each other.
It makes the bombshell first lines all the more shocking.
“I think I would like a divorce,” Nancy says, matter-of-factly.
“All right,” Bill replies, unfazed.
Nancy’s and Bill’s two adult sons are less sanguine about the matter, bursting on the scene to try to piece their parents’ marriage back together, or at least discern where it went wrong.
“Grand Horizons” strikes a lovely mix of awkward comedy and interpersonal drama, with characters striving for a new, greater kind of intimate relationship with each other, and not always making it work. But sometimes, that’s life, and that’s a lesson these characters have to learn.
At seven actors, the cast isn’t expansive, but is the largest cast of the season. The play mainly revolves around Nancy, Bill, their sons Ben and Brian, played by Joseph Marrella and Adam Patterson, respectively, and heavily pregnant daughter-in-law Jess, played by ShonitaJoshi.
Adam Sowers, previously seen at Peterborough Players in “Mass Appeal,” returns for a smaller role in this production as a one-night fling Brian brings home, who makes him face a few home truths about himself and his relationship with his parents.
Marina Re, who most-recently performed in the Huntington Theatre’s production of “Joy and Pandemic” in an off-Broadway production, and was a Players performer in last year’s “Circle Mirror Transformation,” plays Bill’s girl-on-the-side, Carla.
This is a play not so much about healing relationships – in fact, the characters may end the play in a worse place than where they started in that regard – but about realizing that people have inner lives that delve beyond the surface roles of “Mom,” “Dad,” “sensible older brother” and “sensitive little brother” everyone else has put upon them.
This is particularly true of Manfre’s performance of Nancy. Manfre is a Players favorite, having been in a list of shows that stretches back to 1998. Alhough “Grand Horizons” is more of an ensemble piece, Manfre stands out among the cast, as she tips between being the dutiful wife and mother and her desperation to matter to the world and exist as a whole person to her husband and children.
While each of the characters, to some extent, has to break out of their predestined roles, Nancy has the most-complete and most satisfying arc, as she is the instigator of shaking up the family’s expectations of each other and the only one really striving throughout the play to, in her own words to one of her sons, “be a real person to you.”
Joshi, as Jess, also has an interesting arc. A therapist, she first attempts to be peacemaker, but as the play moves on and her life is continually disrupted by her in-laws’ problems, she becomes increasingly struck by the fact that she is at the start of a life similar to Nancy’s and Bill’s – starting a family, and becoming “a mom,” instead of a singular person.
Rees is at the Players for a second season, after being featured in last year’s productions of “Circle Mirror Transformation” and “Serving Elizabeth.” He carries an excellent understated sense of comedic timing, though a bit understated in this piece.
There are times the dialogue in the play comes off as uncomfortable – intentionally, as the characters of Brian and Ben are also made uncomfortable by the frank explanation of their parents’ inner lives. And if you’d like an ending with a firm resolution, this isn’t the play for that. The ending note is hopeful, but far from definitive for Nancy and Bill.
But despite that, we can see how these people have changed throughout the play. Yes, their senses of selves are shaken, but they have shed secrets that were holding them back, and if they are less comfortable with each other than they were before, that may not be a bad thing.
The play has a single setting, Bill’s and Nancy’s retirement condo, intentionally made to look a bit cookie-cutter, but with an innovative design that includes a view into a kitchen over a countertop, which gives the stage some nice separation and an additional space for the actors to work with.
“Grand Horizons” runs through July 30. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The July 22 and 23 shows will have a post-show talkback, and there is no show Monday, July 24.
Tickets are $52, including fees, and can be purchased at peterboroughplayers.org or at the box office Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 10 a.m. to showtime on performance days. To reach the box office, call 603-924-7585.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.