On September 10, immediately before the 9/11 flood of horrifying reminiscences of the disaster ten years ago, Geva Theater Center in Rochester, New York, ended its opening night performance for the 2011-2012 season with the audience's bright, enthusiastic applause. The production, a revival of Ernest Thompson's heartwarming On Golden Pond,seemed a tonic choice to me a cheering contrast not only to the next-day's recalls and to our current very troubled times, but also to the nightmare-inducing, horrifying new plays I've been reading that good-looking, young rising playwrights seem compelled to write these days.
Playwright Thompson has written that he thought of the play as "a study in dysfunction, one family's struggles with what we all struggle with age, rage, regret, love withheld, love unspoken, disappointment and, ultimately, if we're lucky, forgiveness, acceptance, and renewal." Even that dark comment ends in triumphantly upbeat resolution, and this pleasing 1979 play is undeniably a happy experience.
Since director Skip Greer and actor Kenneth Tigar, who plays Norman, the 80 year old lead character, are both accomplished and successful theater artists, it's difficult to imagine how much each of them is responsible for the choice to play Norman as cute and lovable instead of formidably irascible and acerbic as the script describes him. But that approach is a mistake. The ending is sweet enough; to gloss over the sharpness of the family conflicts is merely to cut substance and intellect from the play.
The story is simply that Norman Thayer, Jr. (played by Kenneth Tigar) and his wife Ethel (the enormously expressive and appealing actress Beth Dixon) are returning to their summer home on the water perhaps for the last time. Norman is celebrating his 80th birthday and has had heart troubles; Ethel, in her late 70s, also has physical problems. They learn that their partly estranged, divorced daughter Chelsea will visit them, bringing her new boyfriend and his school-dropout, 13 year-old son. The only other visitor is a longtime neighbor, their none-too-bright Postman, Charlie (very amusingly played by Patrick Noonan).
Larry Bull makes what he can of the underwritten boyfriend, Bill Ray, whom we don't see much. Young Eoin Dennis is a bright and lively Billy Ray Jr., who stays with Norman and Ethel when Chelsea and Billy's father go off on a trip that ends with their marrying. The growing affection and understandings between the boy and the elderly couple make up much of the play's appealing development.
Norman and his daughter's difficulties (he tells her that he just assumed that they didn't like each other) are merely mentioned. And Chelsea's reconciliation with her father is almost as abrupt. Kenneth Tigar plays it with persuasive suggestions that Norman is embarrassed but pleased to resume an affectionate relationship. And Kati Brazda, a very strong actress, manages to convey Chelsea's long-held resentment, her relief and wary happiness at their newfound fondness, and much else with surprising clarity. The celebratory quality of Geva's opening play seems to be stated by our first sight of the stage. This is a well-cast and directed, well-performed, handsomely costumed production. Only slightly more gorgeous than Robert Koharchik's detailed, wonderfully realistic wooden summer house with a view of the water and vegetation and skies surrounding it is Kendall Smith's exquisite, constantly changing lighting, including sunrises and sunsets. Many will regret that we are not permitted to take pictures of the stage.
