Shawano’s Box in the Wood Theatre Guild is presenting “On Golden Pond,” a play by Ernest Thompson, this week and next week at the Mielke Arts Center.
The show focuses on a year in the life of Norman and Ethel Thayer, played by Bill Koehne and Marty Hinshelwood, respectively. The elderly couple returns to their summer home on the shore of Golden Pond, dwelling on their twilight years approaching while having to deal with their daughter, her new fiance and his son.
“Norman and Ethel have been coming to this summer home on Golden Pond for 48 summers, and they’re facing a number of things in their relationship,” said Tom Webster, the show’s director. “Norman’s preoccupied with the thought of death, and they have a daughter, Chelsea, who has not had a good relationship with her father, and she’s coming back for Norman’s 80th birthday.”
Chelsea Thayer, played by Lori Smits, finds herself once again dealing with her turbulent relationship with her father that dates back to childhood. In the meantime, fiance Bill Ray, played by Ralph Beversdorf, and his son, Billy Ray Jr., played by Mitch Froemming, are trying to fit into the family dynamic.
“It’s dealing with the relationship of an elderly couple, and also the parent-child relationship,” Webster said.
Also part of the cast is Dave Hackbarth, who plays Charley, the Thayers’ mailman, who once dated Chelsea.
What caught Webster’s attention and motivated him to direct the local show was the love story between Norman and Ethel. He remembered that sticking out when he saw the film adaptation in 1981.
“The contrast between Norman and Ethel, they’re so different in so many ways, and yet they’ve kept their relationship strong enough to work it out,” Webster said. “I think Norman is attracted to the liveliness, the sense of life that Ethel possesses that he might have had when he was younger but has dwindled quite a bit.”
The role of Billy Ray Jr. figures prominently into the show as he pushes Norman, who has not had to deal with young people for a long time. The two form a friendship, Webster said, and Norman shows the California youth the amazing newness of life on the shore of a lake.
The story reminds Webster of his grandparents.
“My grandparents had a cabin on a lake north of Eau Claire, and when I saw the movie, I was so reminded of the relationship I had with them,” he said.
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