By Gaeil Farrar
Tribune Staff Writer
The Studio Theatre’s set of On Golden Pond delightfully transports the audience to a rambling log house on a remote lake where an everyday family drama unfolds.
Take a close look at the logs and you will never guess they were all hand-painted and not photographically simulated wallboard.
The scene through the window is also truly spectacular and an apt backdrop for this story of family relationships and the power of love in surviving the changes that life inevitably brings.
On Golden Pond written by Ernest Thompson and directed for the Studio Theatre by Tony Savile explores the often turbulent relationship between father and daughter, and some of the difficulties faced by a couple in their twilight years.
A special bond is forged between the cantankerous Norman and Billy Jr. while his father and Chelsea spend time in Europe.
“The play is richly comical on the surface, universally moving below,” says Savile.
“Aging is part of it, but it is about relationships and family dynamics.”
The play centres on Ethel and Norman Thayer, an aging couple who have spent every summer of their 48 year marriage at their home on a lake called Golden Pond.
This summer of Norman’s 80th birthday they are visited by daughter Chelsea with her fiancé Bill and his son Billy.
The cast includes Brad Lawryk as Norman Thayer Jr.; Sandy Alaric as his wife Ethel Thayer; Carla Friesen-Martin as daughter Chelsea Thayer Wayne; Craig Smith as Chelsea’s dentist fiance Bill Ray; Conlan Sprickerhoff as Bill’s son Billy; and Shane Tollefson as Charlie Martin, who has had a crush on Chelsea since childhood.
On Golden Pond is on stage this Friday and Saturday evening April 1 and 2 and next week, April 6 to April 9. Showtimes are at 8 p.m.
Tickets are available at About Face Photography.