On Golden Pond

Synopsis

Every summer Norman Thayer and his wife Ethel return to their house on Golden Pond in Maine. Faces come and go - much like the loons and their chicks out on the lake - but the rhythm of life remains the same. When estranged daughter Chelsea turns up for Norman s 80th birthday, however, things look set to change. Chelsea and partner Bill are heading for Europe and want to leave behind Billy, Bill s 13 year-old son. In the weeks that follow, an unlikely, yet charming, friendship forms between the acid-witted Norman and street-wise Billy, but as the time comes for Billy to leave Golden Pond some old differences have yet to be resolved... This poignant and witty play - made famous by the film starring Jane and Henry Fonda - captures the simplicity of life on Golden Pond. Enter a world where second childhoods and second chances are still possible!

Our Review:

Anne Morley-Priestman - 17 January 2012

The year is 1978. We’re in the summer lakeside home of a retired professor and his wife somewhere in the more desirable parts of Maine. Norman Thayer Jnr’s past profession may have provided a lifestyle of creature comforts for his wife and daughter, but his real lifelong one is being curmudgeonly, treating everyone from spouse to postman as though they were particularly dim first-year students.

His wife copes. His daughter has escaped into a failed marriage and subsequent relationships. Most of the other people with whom he has contact just say “Oh, that’s Norman” and shrug aside his need always to be top-dog. But lurking in the bushes is the onset of memory loss, not to mention a heart-murmur. Remember that we’re still at a time when Alzheimer’s Disease was not yet the verbal fig-leaf for senile dementia.

The play is, of course, Ernest Thompson’s On Golden Pond – you probably know it best in the award-winn...

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