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Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing
Article Summaries |
On Golden Pond Returns To Broadway
by Esther J. Perne On Golden Pond, complete with old fishing hats, central fireplace, love and loons opened at the Cort Theater in New York City in April — twenty-six years after its original appearance on Broadway. As with the first time around, this timeless, changeless classic is earning acclaim at all levels — excellent critic reviews, outstanding audience endorsement, compelling cast enthusiasm, and the nomination for two Tony Awards — the play itself for Best Revival and James Earl Jones for Best Lead Actor. Written by Ernest Thompson and based on his lifetime of lakeside summers, On Golden Pond successfully intertwines the simple and endearing traditions of the seasonal family camp with the universal complexities of morality, mortality, and intergenerational relationships. The setting is Great Pond, right here in the Belgrades, complete with berry picking, canoeing, rustic furnishings, and fishing in the rain. It's also any lake, any summer camp, "very near wherever you are," which, if international performances are any indication, has included Finland, France, Japan, Sweden, throughout Canada, and many more locations, languages, and nationalities.
So encompassing and translatable is the On Golden Pond experience that it is refreshingly and accurately portrayed in its current Broadway production even though only one of the actors has ever been to Maine. In fact, the almost all-black cast performs one of the best presentations in the play's long history . . in a set that has achieved that familiar "Belgrady" camp feel. "A friend from Winslow sent me a tape of someone interviewing Stephen King," explains Craig Bockhorn, who plays Charlie, the mailman. Bockhorn is the only white actor in the play and whoever sent the tape helped him achieve a more serious and believable character than usual — very close to Dave Webster the Great Pond delivery legend. James Earl Jones as Norman Thayer, the grumpy, 80-year-old, in whom almost all viewers recognize glimpses of their own fathers, fits into his role with a conviction that the Belgrade old-timers would find acceptable — the highest form of praise next to being nominated for a Tony Award. He is perfectly complemented by the excellent Ethel character, Leslie Uggams, who also would get the old-timer approval and who should have been nominated. Achieving an acceptable role of "from away" regular by a Mainer is no mean feat.
As for the Chelsea character, the grown-up who is an adult everywhere but on Golden Pond — a role familiar to generations of summer lake dwellers who have undergone the same sentiments — the role is excellently played by Linda Powell. "I love it. It's an amazing experience," Powell stated about being in the play. Her role cleverly draws in the two well-presented California characters of her fiancée/husband Bill Ray (Peter Francis James) and his son Billy Ray (Alexander Mitchell) who both deserve a lot of credit for making "from away" look some far to Mainers. Definitely not to be overlooked are the understudies, the actors substituted for the primary cast in the event of an absence or emergency. For their enthusiasm and dedication may they have opportunities, for good reasons, to "go on": for Norman, Charles Turner; for Ethel, Petronia Paley; for Chelsea, Opal Alladin; for Bill and Charlie, Cornell Womack; and for Billy, Rydell Rollins.
The magic of the theater, Thompson once pointed out during a Maine International Film Festival in Waterville, is what happens in the mind. For many perhaps so; that magic is certainly working on Broadway, but Belgraders know better. On Golden Pond may be "wherever you are," but right here is as close to the real Golden Pond as it gets. For more information about the Broadway revival of On Golden Pond, visit its web site. | ||||
