Bess Wohl’s Make Believe—at the Second Stage Theater last summer—looked at a broken family through the eyes of children, both as scared youngsters and scarred adults. Her new play, Grand Horizons, has a similar outlook, but now the adult children must come to terms with their elderly parents’ surprising decision.

 

 

When Bill and Nancy—now living at Grand Horizons, a seniors’ “independent living community”—decide to get a divorce (Nancy blurts it out one morning at breakfast, and Bill agrees), their sons Brian and Ben, along with Ben’s heavily pregnant wife Jess, descend on them to see what the hell is going on. Soon skeletons are dragged out of (and tossed back in) the family closet as shifting family dynamics of the past several decades are analyzed: Bill’s current relationship with another woman, Carla; Nancy’s decades-ago fling with her high school sweetheart; older brother Ben and younger brother Brian still fraught relationship, seeing that straight Ben is a married successful lawyer with a kid on the way while gay Brian is single, desperate for companionship—his Tinder date with Tommy, whom he brings back to his parents’ place, quickly turns ruinous—and is a grade-school theater teacher.

 

 

If Grand Horizons approaches sitcom-level comedy at times—like repeated jokes about Brian’s The Crucible staging with a youthful cast of 200—and its contrivances grate more than those in Make Believe (the coup de theatre that ends act one with a literal bang is a hoary device that sets up the less interesting second act), Wohl writes lively, biting dialogue that shows her understanding of and sympathy for her flawed characters. On Wohl’s wavelength is director Leigh Silverman, who smooths out the rough patches in a humorous, involving production that features Clint Ramos’ perfectly antiseptic set design and Jen Schriever’s nicely understated lighting. 

 

 

The excellent cast features Maulik Pancholy as Brian’s disastrously funny date Tommy, Priscilla Lopez as a scene-stealing Carla and Ashley Park as an amusingly exasperated Jess. As the brothers, Ben McKenzie’s Ben has a levelheadedness that always threatens to turn sour, and Michael Urie’s Brian lays bare his many scars with equal parts humor and heartbreak. 

 

 

Nancy and Bill are embodied beautifully by Jane Alexander and James Cromwell. Cromwell’s dry delivery serves him well as Bill, a man whose life has taken many wrong turns of his own making, while Alexander is simply radiant as Nancy, showing the simultaneous exasperation and elation over her marriage’s possible dissolution. Others have said that the 80-year-old award-winning actress extolling cunnilingus is the show’s high point: actually, Alexander’s entire performance is the show’s high point. 

 

 

Grand Horizons

Blu-rays of the Week 

(Criterion)

Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi’s sublime creations are mainly in Barcelona, Spain, where Japanese master Hiroshi Teshigahara shot this 1984 visual essay masquerading as a mere documentary. From his towering (and still unfinished) church La Sagrada Família to the amazing curves of his Casa Milà, the fruits of Gaudi’s imagination ran riot—and Teshigahara’s probing camera displays these wondrous masterpieces of modern art. Composer Toru Takemitsu’s bizarre synthesized sounds ingeniously create an audio equivalent to Gaudi’s otherworldly designs.

 

 

 

On Blu-ray, the architect’s buildings and the director’s images look even more spellbinding; extras include Teshigahara’s short about his sculptor father, Sculptures by Sofu-Vita; footage of Teshigahara’s first trip to Spain; the late, great art critic Robert Hughes’ one-hour BBC special about Gaudi; Ken Russell’s BBC TV program about Gaudi; and an interview with architect Arata Isozaki.

 

 

 

Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame in Concert—The Blu-Ray Collection 

(Time Life)

This boxed set collects three previous releases that cover the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies from 2009 to 2017. First, there are two discs of the 25th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden in 2009, which paired many top stars that rarely play together, including Bruce Springsteen with Billy Joel, Mick Jagger and Fergie with U2, and Sting with Jeff Beck. A second two-disc set comprises the induction ceremonies from 2010 through 2013, highlighted by outpourings of support from audiences and musicians for Genesis (2010) and especially Rush (2013), the latter for which uber-fans Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins inducted the band and played its classic “Overture” from 2112.

 

 

 

Best induction speech is the late Chris Cornell’s for Heart (2013), and Alice in Chains leader Jerry Cantrell jammed on rousing versions of “Crazy on You” and “Barracuda” with the Wilson sisters. The final two discs features the 2014-17 induction ceremonies: highlights are the remaining members of Nirvana with singers Joan Jett, Kim Gordon, Annie Clark and Lorde (2014); Ringo and Paul reunion for Starr’s belated solo induction (2015); and Rush’s Geddy Lee playing bass in place of the late, great Chris Squire in a tribute to Yes (2017). Hi-def video and audio are first-rate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snatchers 

Warner Bros. provided me with a free copy of this disc for review.

When nice gal Sara has sex with high school hunk Skyler, she gives birth almost immediately to two extraterrestrial monsters, which proceed to terrorize the townspeople, gleefully and gorily killing anything in their path.

 

 

 

This setup makes it sound like it’s a malevolently bloody version of Gremlins, which it is—and though there are rough patches throughout, actress Mary Nepi is perfectly cast as Sara, who plays the virgin turned badass alien hunter with humor and an engaging manner that helps put this over as a tongue-in-cheek parody/monster movie. There’s a first-rate hi-def transfer; extras comprise an audio commentary, making-of and blooper reel.

 

 

 

 

DVD of the Week

Scandalous—The Untold Story of the National Enquirer 

(Magnolia)

This entertaining documentary takes the right approach when dealing with the long and checkered history of the National Enquirer: simultaneously amused and bemused at how the supermarket rag has, as we begin the third decade of the 21st century, become one of the most powerful media conglomerates and an ally of the current president.

 

 

 

Interviews with former staffers give needed context that, coupled with the added tRumpery that has forever damaged whatever integrity a tabloid could have, makes this wild ride quite enlightening—and depressing.

 

CD of the Week 

(BIS)

British soprano Carolyn Sampson has programmed an immensely satisfying recital disc of song settings by several compatriots to works by English poets.

 

 

 

Sampson smartly bookends the disc with the playfully witty William Walton (opening with 1962’s cycle A Song for the Lord Mayor’s Table and ending with three absurdist songs from the great Façade he created with Edith Sitwell), and her pristine voice guides us through a century of British vocal writing from the early 20th century Romanticism of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frank Bridge and Roger Quilter to a composer heretofore unknown to me: Huw Watkins from Wales, whose Five Larkin Songs (this is the first recording; Sampson herself sang the 2010 premiere) present Sampson’s lovely voice at its most emotive. Her pianist, Joseph Middleton, plays with delicacy throughout.

 

Rose Byrne’s exquisitely calibrated performance dominates Simon Stone’s otherwise tepid update of Medea. Her strengths as an actress both onscreen and onstage are maximized, literally: Stone has much of the action play out (however redundantly) in front of a video camera, and the footage captured on the large screen above the stage allows the audience to watch Byrne simultaneously play to the camera and the back row of the BAM Harvey Theater with the same honesty and intensity.

 

Byrne plays Anna, mother of two young boys, who’s been released from a stay in a mental hospital following her attempt to poison her husband Lucas when she discovered he’s cheating on her. Not only is he cheating, he’s made the object of his desire—Clara, the much younger (half Lucas’ age) age) daughter of his and Anna’s research lab boss, Christopher—his betrothed while Anna was out of the picture. Needless to say—especially if one is familiar with the Euripides original—Anna does not take this news well, as she continuously reminds him of what they had (a life together, a family, a scientifically rewarding collaboration) and could have again. But her behavior becomes more erratic, until…

 

 

 

Stone has cleverly configured his Medea on a bright stage, courtesy designer Bob Cousins, whose walls and floor are dazzlingly, even blindingly white, heightened even more by Sarah Johnston’s intentionally excessive lighting. This allows for the effective—if too blatantly symbolic—introduction of black ash and red blood for the setup to the dreadful (in the original sense) finale. Would that Stone gleaned any insight from his staging; instead, even covered in ash and gore, the final filicide/suicide/immolation remains remote, unemotional.

 

As Lucas, Bobby Cannavale—Byrne’s real-life partner and father of her two children—has surprisingly little to do but passively react (with a couple of angry exceptions) to his estranged wife’s behavior. Dylan Baker, always a welcome presence, is a very fine Christopher. Two pairs of boys alternate as the sons Edgar and Gus: Gabriel Amoroso and Emeka Guindo were the believably annoying kids (they man the video camera onstage) at my performance. 

 

Madeline Weinstein’s engaging Clara makes for an obvious contrast to Byrne’s ferocious Anna, and any performer who can stand in place with buckets of blood dripping from her hair deserves an award of some kind. But even at 75 minutes, this bloodless Medea seems stretched beyond its slender means, even with Byrne’s star turn.