Like most families, the family in “On Golden Pond” has ups and downs, tensions with deep roots and unspoken hurts that seem better left in the past.
And like most lives, the lives of this play’s characters seem to have all the time in the world until it is almost gone.
A production of “On Golden Pond,” locally directed by Nancy McBride, will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday on the Backus stage.
McBride again uses Littlefork actors in the Ernest Thompson late ’70’s story with a setting that could be right here in Borderland, amidst mosquitoes and moths and the reverberating sound of loons across a summer bay.
McBride told The Journal she has contemplated doing this play for a long time “because it’s a good story.”
“Everybody can relate to it,” McBride said. “It has everything — humor, pathos, family dynamics, hurts and reconciliations. It’s a love story.”
Set in Maine with a summer feeling much like Rainy Lake’s, an aging couple revisit their seasonal home along the shores of the play’s title.
But mortality is rearing its fateful head to the almost 80-year-old “Norman,” otherwise known as an “old poop.” Obsessive thoughts about death reign over the old man and his differently dispositioned and reassuring wife, “Ethel.” And as the play develops, it becomes apparent that the aging father with an ailing memory is masking many things.
Norman isn’t only afraid of dying, he’s afraid of living.
But then the 40-ish, alienated daughter, whom the couple hasn’t seen in almost a decade, shows up with a boyfriend and his son at the family cabin on Golden Pond. And it’s never too late to kindle new beginnings.
McBride reminds people that although Katherine Hepburn and daughter/father team Jane and Henry Fonda made the story famous in film version, plays are rarely just like the movie.
McBride said she took particular license in the setting by having the actors speak out over the audience when referring to the lake, rather than having the lake on the other side of the stage.
“The audience will be the lake,” she said, smiling, noting that the loons are on the lake.
In the role of Norman will be Tom Donahou, and playing his wife “Ethel” will be Donahou’s real-life wife “P.J.” The couple’s daughter “Chelsea” will be played by Nikki Rom.
Character “Bill” will be played by Zach McClellan and Bill’s challenging son “Billy,” who teaches Norman terms like “suck face,” will be played by Gus Campos, the real grandson of the Donahous. “Charlie the mailman” will be portrayed by Tyler Vork.
McBride said she is pleased with a set which includes a rock fireplace crafted by cast member Tom Donahou, who is also a carpenter. “It’s a set; it’s a set and a half,” McBride asserted.
It’s been a busy summer for the Littlefork English teacher who is a native of, and resides in International Falls. McBride directs this play just off the heels of producing Rock the Border II, also presented at Backus.
In typical McBride style, she will do a lot of the technical work during the presentation. This will include managing the haunting sounds of the loon and other summer characterizations.
Thompson’s play represents a beloved way of summertime life in a lake home as a family mends, and learns to celebrate the inevitable march of time.
“I hope people come,” McBride said.
