TribLIVE: Casting the lead roles of Norman and Ethel Thayer in “On Golden Pond” had to be an easy decision for Apple Hill Playhouse artistic director Pat Beyer. Who else but veteran Greensburg actors Dennis “Chip” Kerr and Shirley Ratner could portray the couple who's been together forever?
They haven't been “married” quite as long as Norman and Ethel — a retired professor and his wife who are returning to their vacation home in Maine for the 48th summer in this show — but Ratner and Kerr definitely have their spouses' roles down pat.
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I absolutely love this show. My dad first showed me the 1981 film with Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn when I was around the age of thirteen. I was drawn in by the beautiful images of nature and the soundtrack by Dave Grusin. I didn't realize it was a play until a year later. Luckily, I found it in a second-hand bookstore. Again, I was drawn into the play; however, I do not agree with Kerr's opinion on what the play is about. It is not just a simple "love story." Kerr makes it sound as if "On Golden Pond" is about a couples in love. We don't really see the love blossom between Chelsea and Billy Ray in the show because most of the time, they are away in Belgium. We really only see the love that Ethel shows for Norman, while Norman sulks about life and death. There are themes about the relationships between the youth and the elderly, but there is a bigger theme. I believe that theme is living life to the fullest. Part of living life to the fullest is to love others. Love is only a fraction of what the play is about. We see the mortality of man. We see how life is so beautiful because it can disappear in a flash. The show is about being grateful for what you have and continue looking forward. It is futile to regret about the past and sulk about future death because you will miss the beauty around you. Beauty can come in forms of love, nature, etc. Ethel says it all when she states, "[A]ll you can do is be disagreeable about the past. Life marches by, Chels. I suggest you get on with it."
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