|
|
On Golden Pond by Ernest Thompson
3 Men, 1 Boy, 2 Women
Author of: Answers, A Good Time, The Constituent, Twinkle Twinkle, The West Side Waltz.
The story is really the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are retuning to the summer home on Golden Pond for the 44th Year.
He is a retired professor, nearing 80, with heart palpitations and a failing memory - but still as tart tongued, observant and eager for life as ever.
Ethel, 10 years younger, and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all the small things which have enriched, and continued to enrich their long life together.
They are visited by their divorced, middle aged daughter and her dentist fiancée, who then go off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for the summer.
The boy quickly becomes the grandchild the elderly couple have longer for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons about modern teenage awareness.
In the end, as the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and in the final, deeply moving moments of the play, Norman and Ethel are brought even closer together by the incidence of a mild heart attack.
Time, they know, is now against them, but the years have been good and, perhaps, another summer on Golden Pond still awaits.
|
