On Golden Pond

On Golden Pond (1979), a play by Ernest Thompson. [New Apollo Theatre, 156 perf.] Ethel ( Frances Sternhagen) and Norman Thayer ( Tom Aldredge) have been spending their summers in their Maine cottage ever since they were married. Norman has always been a little crotchety and something of a hypochondriac, but now that he is turning eighty, he is sure he is dying. Their summer is made eventful by the arrival of their grown daughter ( Zina Jasper), her fiancé dentist ( Stan Lachow), and his teenage son ( Mark Bendo) whom, after a lot of fussing, Norman finally accepts. As the summer ends the old couple pack up and leave, realizing this may be their final farewell to the summer home. This quiet, touching idyll reopened the old Apollo Theatre on 42nd Street, initiating a hoped‐for rebirth of the street that had once been New York City's main theatrical block and long had been given over to grind movies. The play originally had been produced Off Broadway earlier in the season, and later became a popular entry in summer stock and community theatres. Ernest THOMPSON (b. 1949) was born in Vermont, and studied theatre at various universities around the country before becoming an actor and writing plays. On Golden Pond was his first full‐length work to be mounted professionally, although an earlier play, The West Side Waltz, was revised and used as a vehicle by Katharine Hepburn, first on tour and then in New York during the 1981–82 season.