On Golden Pond
This poignant play is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who have returned to their summer home on Golden Pond for the 48th straight 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, 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. As Norman revels in taking his new charge fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons about modern teenage awareness – and slang – in return. In the final, deeply moving moments of the play, Norman and Ethel are brought even closer together by 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.