On Golden Pond
Written by Ernest Thompson
Directed by Bill Fielder
26 November – 1 December 1990
This is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the forty-eighth year. He is a retired professor, nearing eighty, with heart palpitations and a failing memory—but still as tart-tongued, observant and eager for life as ever. Ethel, ten years younger, and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all the small things that have enriched and continue to enrich their long life together. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist fiancé, who then go off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the “grandchild” the elderly couple have longed 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 —and slang— in return. 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.
Cast
Norman Thayer Jr – John Summers
Ethel Thayer – Audrey Christianson
Charlie Martin – Ian Macdonald
Chelsea Thayer Wayne – Jeannie McCullough
Billy Ray – Matthew Poole
Bill Ray – Geoff Hawes
Crew
Stage Manager – John Foord-Divers
Set Design – Graeme Horner, John Foord-Divers
Assistant Stage Manager – Denise Brown
Lighting – C. D’Oyly-Watkins
Properties – Hilary Medhurst, Barbara Brookes
Sound – Carolynn Brown
Set Construction – Guild Workshop
Wardrobe – Marjorie Sawyer
Show Gallery
