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‘On Golden Pond:’ September coming on Winter

Cranbrook Community Theatre’s latest production opens tonight, Friday, April 28. at the Studio Stage Door
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Cranbrook Community Theatre’s “On Golden Pond,” written by Ernest Thompson, revolves around a couple in the September of their years, as one says, with winter rapidly approaching.

Norman and Ethel Thayer are as comfortable with each other as a long married couple can be — their banter, their moments of intimacy, their jibes at each other that keep each other alive.

The Thayers spend each summer at their cottage on Golden Pond, alive with trout and loons.

But underneath the humorous repartee shadows are beginning to emerge — with the prospect of Norman’s approaching dementia, and the imminent arrival of their daughter Chelsea, in her 40s, estranged from her father, and trying to get her life back on track with a new boyfriend, the dentist Billy, and his young son Bill.

The complex network of relationships will play out in search of reconciliation, revolving around the figure of the patriarch — the wry, clever, cynical Norman. The play unfolds over the course of a long season, divided into five scenes, with each scene a month apart. Such a short time to achieve for lives to influence each other, to affect such change in each other, striving for reconciliation by play’s end.

Jack Lindquist and Joanne Wilkinson are electric as the old couple — trading dialogue as if they have been married 48 years. Veteran CCT actor Jennifer Henkes Inglis brings all her skill to the role of Chelsea, trying to put her past behind her — including the troubled relationship with her father. Charlie the Mailman, played by Bob McCue, is and comic element and a touchstone in the past of the Thayer family. Trevor Lundy brings a unique, uptight persona to Bill Ray the dentist — his conversation with Norman when they meet is priceless.

And Lucius Lundy, shines as young Billy, who establishes an unlikely bond with the gruff Norman.

“On Golden Pond” opens tonight, Friday, April 28, at the Studio Stage Door in Cranbrook. It then runs Saturday, April 29, then May 3-6, and 10-13. All shows at 7:30 p.m. Tickets available at Lotus Books.

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Barry Coulter

About the Author: Barry Coulter

Barry Coulter had been Editor of the Cranbrook Townsman since 1998, and has been part of all those dynamic changes the newspaper industry has gone through over the past 20 years.
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