Review of Maitland Repertory Theatre's latest production Grand Horizons by Maitland artist and writer Dr Genevieve Graham.
An elderly couple sit at their kitchen table. Rotating through the same routine they have done countless times before. Today, something changes.
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In this comedy, the wonderfully witty dialogue between family members had the audience in a hum of giggles and in awe of the poignant observations on life.
Directors Brett Harston and Anne Robinson have done a standout job of not over complicating this play and balancing the comedy and drama on a small stage.
In the Repertory Theatre's Grand Horizons by Bess Wohl, the set designers have given the audience a real sense of who this couple is before we even meet them.
The stage is a hodgepodge of old and new décor with old family furniture mingling with new mass-produced art on the walls. It shows a life paired back to its basics. A life once focused on family and work, now retirement and inevitably death.
Residing in an independent living community, Bill and Nancy are not dead - yet. Instead they are trying new things, meeting new people and questioning if they are living their best life, particularly Nancy.
Jen Masson plays Nancy French who reveals her true self one layer at a time. As she sheds the skin of wife and mother she grows into a whole person.
Meanwhile, her two grown sons Ben and Brian still expect their mother to remain exactly as she has always been. At the same time her husband Bill French, played by Michael Smythe, feels like he is meeting his wife for the first time in their 50-year marriage. Awakening something in himself too.
The brothers, as well as Ben's heavily pregnant wife Jess (played brilliantly by Jessica Gray) are of a generation that celebrates self-expression but a generational divide becomes clear as they come to terms with Nancy's personal revolution.
The audience found it hilarious to watch the family squirm as they try to find a common language to discuss affection and sex, and even sexting.
Each character initially deflects life's big questions with humour. The laughs centre around a cycle of family dysfunction continuing in a new generation, the identity of motherhood questioned and the annoyance of being an elderly person reduced to a stereotype, yet the characters eventually have to face the truth.
Grand Horizons reassesses what to value in life through laughter. I revelled in watching the risks this family takes in disrupting the flow of their everyday lives in order to find genuine happiness.
Catch Grand Horizons at the Maitland Repertory Theatre until May 12. Get tickets at www.mrt.org.au.
