REVIEW: On Golden Pond is a quiet, understated slice-of-life tale
Theatre Ancaster delivers a family story of aging, memories and relationships as the source of both friction and solace.
With three performances left in its run, On Golden Pond at Theatre Ancaster provides a gentle diversion with bittersweet moments, relatable humour, and a silver thread of optimism in a story that follows the progression of life and its changes for a family and the aging couple at its centre.
On Golden Pond follows an elderly couple at their summer home located “on Golden Pond,” somewhere in New England. The play is a slice of life tale that covers, as veteran Ancaster director Bob Carle says, “family relationships, redemption, regret, reconciliation and love.” It explores aging, memories and memory loss, and family relationships as the source of both friction and solace.
In his note in the playbill, director Carle describes circumstances that made his involvement in this production feel particularly personal. After a half century, it became necessary to sell the Muskoka cottage that served as an important touchpoint for his family. “This moment in time has made it even more poignant for me as director of On Golden Pond,” Carle says. “I understand the importance of the Thayer cottage more than I would have a year ago. I see that it is their refuge, their anchor; a sanctuary frozen in time in an ever-shifting world. The warmth of the pine walls and time-manufactured clutter add to their ease and solace.”
While most know it as an Academy Award-winning movie, On Golden Pond originated as a 1979 play by Ernest Thompson. It opened on Broadway at the New Apollo Theatre, where it ran for 126 performances, then reopened after a short break at the Century Theatre, continuing with the same cast for an additional 256 performances. The play garnered a Tony and multiple Drama Desk Award nominations. Thompson himself wrote the screen adaptation that turned into the 1981 film directed by Mike Rydell and starring Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn and Jane Fonda. Viewers of both will notice there are a few plot variations between the film and the play.
Jane Fonda purchased the rights to On Golden Pond in order for her father, veteran actor Henry Fonda, to play the lead role of Norman Thayer. The movie was both critically and commercially successful with recognition for the screenplay, direction, and performances. It was the second-highest grossing film of the year in North America behind Raiders of the Lost Ark. With 10 nominations, On Golden Pond took home three Oscars for Best Actor (Henry Fonda), Best Actress (Katharine Hepburn) and Best Adapted Screenplay.
It seems fitting, then, that the highlight of the Ancaster production is the beautifully calibrated performance of Andy Blackwood, who plays the aging patriarch, Norman Thayer Jr. Blackwood brings a wonderfully natural realism to Norman, an elderly man who is losing his memory, yet retains a dignity and sense of self he will not easily relinquish. He is prickly, but not humourless. He is stubborn, but not unforgiving. It is sometimes concealed behind a veneer of gruffness, but Norman is a lovable and loving curmudgeon, still able to be vulnerable, particularly with his wife of many years Ethel (Bonnie Tolton). Blackwood makes it look effortless. Tolton and Blackwood lend a believable sense of ease and unspoken shared experience to Ethel and Norman Thayer. Tolton meets Blackwood with a performance that embodies the worried yet ever-hopeful attitude of an older woman who is likely familiar to many audience members as one committed to managing circumstances to keep her spouse and family safe, happy, and comfortable at all costs.
Edward Robinson, who plays Billy Ray, Ethel and Norman’s new (step-) grandson, also deserves a special mention for his realistic portrayal, which skillfully avoids the pitfalls of overacting or leaning too heavily into teenage stereotypes. His Billy Ray questions the adults, is well-armed with sarcasm, and verbally spars with Norman but still comes across as a nice, decent kid like your own grandson, son, or nephew. I hope we see even more of this local young talent in future.
Maia Kirby (Chelsea Thayer Wayne), Rob Arnold (Charlie Martin), and Stevan Sobot (Bill Ray) round out the cast of On Golden Pond.
After seeing A Chorus Line last month, I was charmed by the transformation of the Theatre Ancaster set into the sturdy, lived-in interior of the Thayer family cottage. It’s filled with all the fishing and sporting equipment, photos, furniture, and housewares you’d expect to find in a cottage that’s been used for decades. There’s a clever recurring gag of the screen door coming off its hinges, and an inventive use of projection and sound to make it appear that the lake, complete with echoing loon calls, is beyond the back wall of the stage, just outside the cottage. There’s no wasted or unused space, with the kitchen off-stage to one side, and an unseen patch of woods outside the cottage to the other. Good job to the set design and construction team, as well as the crew responsible for lighting, projection, and sound.
This production has a very different energy than A Chorus Line, Spamalot or Theatre Ancaster’s next show, Come From Away. It’s not brash, nervy, or full of high-stakes conflict or sitcom laughter. It’s quiet, understated. On Golden Pond is a touching story about the changing yet enduring qualities of life, love, memory, and family.
NEED TO KNOW
Continues Sept. 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Sept. 19 & 20 at 2 p.m.
Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre, Peller Hall
357 Wilson St. E., Ancaster
Tickets here or at 905-304-3232
Theatre Ancaster audience warning: This production contains mature themes and language reflective of the time in which it was written, including some terminology that may be considered outdated or offensive.
