On Golden Pond: Time with Family

Easthampton Theater Company’s ‘On Golden Pond’ brought together some memorable and appealing characters who I enjoyed meeting. Take Billy Ray (Jaxon Reddy), the younger Billy, a 13-year-old decked out with a Walkman on his belt, ready.  At first he’s not sure about this situation, but he warms up to the old guy. He teaches our hero Norman Thayer Jr. (William Spademan) a few choice vocabulary words, and the irascible grumpy old guy takes to him like a dog to a hunt. It’s 1988, you see, so we don’t have any cellphones for the next few hours.

The setting is on Golden Pond, Maine. We’re at a vacation camp, and it’s another season on the lake with the sounds of the loons.  We meet Norman’s wife, Ethel Thayer (Patricia Perlman), who comes equipped with a generous sense of humor and understands Norman’s failing memory and acuity. She takes it all in stride; by now, she’s used to the crazy, funny things that come out of his mouth. I enjoyed that the script included these awkward outbursts and occasional veering into the politically incorrect minefield. “We could eat the fish raw like the Orientals,” he says, as the audience silently cringes. Ethel knows how to handle Norman, she gets a laugh when she flashes him in her bathrobe.

But that Billy, he’s got some of the show’s best lines.  Billy is straight with the octogenarian. “Don’t bullshit me man,” and Norman likes him even more. I enjoyed this repartee, a confident youngster who grabs the fishing pole and happily heads out to fish with Norman. “What’s the point of having this dwarf around if he can’t do chores,” he declares, looking at Billy.

Ethel and Norman have a beloved daughter, Chelsea, famously played by Jane Fonda in the film.  Here, Kimberly Gaughan does a great job bringing that angst. She’s so happy to hug her mom, the warm Ethel, but dad, she just can’t relate. He rubs her all the wrong ways, and she veers into the dark past, sharing what drove them so far apart.

One fixture of the pond is mailman Charlie Martin (Shelton Windham), who never left Maine and dated Chelsea in high school during her summers at the lake. He’s stood still, and she’s moved on to the City of Angels.  Bill took her where Charlie could not. He’s sad but not stupid.

The audience by now knows that with the crazy stuff he’s spouting, he’s not equipped to be a great father anymore, and she introduces dad to her boyfriend Bill Ray (Travis Maider), young Billy’s dad. Maider played a sparkling role last year in ETC’s production of “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” but here he is more subdued.

Bill has to get along with Pops because, well, it’s his house. He has to negotiate the awkward question of sleeping arrangements, but to his chagrin, the old guy’s on board. Of course, then we get to hear him pop out more funny lines about sex, oblivious as he is to Bill’s feelings. But Bill is a good sport.

I had a funny experience with the trailer produced to promote the play. When I saw all of the smiling faces and hugging, I thought the play was going to be maudlin and cloying, but instead, we got realistic dialogue and an honest look at the process we all face, that thing called getting older. And death.

I had a conversation with director Jason Rose-Langston before the production began, and he said he felt that this cast and crew were nailing it, all of them came together very well. I must agree; everyone was well-cast and brought a lot of emotion to their roles.  This is Jason’s second directorship with ETC, he directed ‘Torch Song’ in their first season.

‘On Golden Pond,’ by Ernest Thompson. Easthampton Theater Company at Williston Academy, March 21, 22, 23. Directed by Jason Rose-Langston, produced by Michael O. Budnick. Scenic Design by Joy Gilman. Tickets