NORTHVILLE,, MI–I had never heard of Grand Horizons when assigned to see and write about the new production at Tipping Point Theatre in Northville, and was surprised to see that the original Broadway production had impressive star power (Ben McKenzie of The O.C. and Gotham, Ashley Park of Broadway’s Mean Girls, and James Cromwell of…every movie you’ve ever liked)…and closed after nine weeks (including a month of previews).

Like so many other dreams delayed or aborted, this show hit the brick wall of COVID-19 after just a few weeks, so I was glad to discover that it’s getting a fulsome second life in regional productions nationwide. Tipping Point is hosting this show’s Michigan premiere, and it’s well worth your time. Don’t take the kids…but mom and dad (and a generation older) will have a terrific time. The show is raucous, funny, surprisingly touching, and unpredictable enough to flirt with the obvious Chekhov’s Gun of introducing a woman well into her ninth month of pregnancy.

Opening on an elderly married couple silently and mechanically setting the table in their senior apartment for what could easily be their 50,000th meal together, the ride starts from the very first line, when Nancy tells her husband Bill “I think I want a divorce.” This unexpected, facially ridiculous idea sets in motion a series of family meetings, conversation, rendezvous, infidelity, lies, reassessment, demands, understanding, and new beginnings.

The news of their parents’ impending breakup brings their two adult progeny running. Elder son Ben (great work here by Detroit area vet Bryan Lark), a stereotypically Type-A control freak corporate lawyer who brings in tow an extremely pregnant wife Jess (well played here by Rebecca Rose Mims), a well-meaning psychotherapist whose very up to the minute wokeness definitely bends toward parody. Their younger son Brian, a sarcastic, devil-may-care, gay-but-alone son is a high school theater teacher who is nobly and hilariously trying to stage The Crucible with a cast of 200 kids. Played deftly by Bailey Boudreau, Brian is insular, self-focused, but cares deeply about his cast of 200, which is a result of his focus on not disappointing anyone.

As the lead couple who do the heaviest lifting here, John Seibert (Bill) and Leigh Strimbeck (Nancy) are exceptional with easy chemistry. They are completely believable as a couple who have been together for decades, with Strimbeck’s telling the story of how she became who she is particularly strong and effecting, but as Bill (an aspiring stand up comic), Seibert gets to tell one of the filthiest jokes I’ve heard this side of The Aristocrats, which gets a laugh so loud and long, the cast has to wait for it to die down. I should also note the two other members of the cast who really deliver in their roles, but for a single scene each.

Theater can be a Swiss Army knife, and sometimes you’re the big blade and sometimes you’re the corkscrew, but Stephanie Nichols as Bill’s something-on-the-side Carla, and Oscar Quiroz as Tommy, a randy stranger Brian brings home from a bar (whose specificity during role playing is a tad…off-putting) couldn’t be stronger. Nichols makes the act of putting bagged oyster crackers on the kitchen counter a really poignant moment, and Quiroz makes you wish Tommy had more to do with the story. Quiroz, who has a distinguished resume in his native Honduras and later in Mexico, is making his American professional debut with this show, and I am glad to have seen it.

Grand Horizons is not a “big” show about “big” things or ideas, but it’s about those things that are real and known to every one of us: The uncertainty of aging, the rootlessness of retirement from a career and your children leaving home, anxiety over starting a family, the emptiness of unfulfilled dreams, and the gnawing black hole in a heart that has nobody to call their own. As I mentioned previously, this is not a show to take children to. First, because of the sex jokes. But also because you have to have experience with adulthood to understand where any of this is coming from.

I’m sad to say that I got to this show late in its run, so you don’t have a lot of time to see it, but Grand Horizons is well worth the trip from wherever you’re coming from.
(Grand Horizons is playing at Tipping Point Theatre at 361 E. Cady St in Northville, now through October 20th. Tickets are available at www.tippingpointtheatre.com, or by calling the box office at 248-347-0003. Questions? Write to ‘tix@tippingpointtheatre.com’)