After opening its season with Maggie May in collaboration with Harbinger Theater, Albany Civic Theater’s 2024-2025 season continues with Ernest Thompson’s On Golden Pond. On Golden Pond tells the story of an aging couple at their summer home in Maine. At the beginning of the summer, the couple’s daughter comes to visit with her new boyfriend and his teenage son, and the son spends the summer with the aging couple while the young couple sets off for Europe. It isn’t much of a story; but the show still manages to hit some high notes with excellent comedic timing and wonderful chemistry among its cast.
I arrived a bit early for the show and was treated to some catchy but repetitive pre-show music. The jaunty classics were welcoming and enjoyable at first, but after the first 15 minutes of samey old pop numbers, I was quite ready for a fleet of sirens to go past the theater just to break up the ambiance. As the lights came up, I found the set to be similarly homey yet uninspired. Peter Kantor designed a set that looks like an amalgamation of every rustic northeastern cabin, with charmingly mismatched furniture, a rickety antique table that wobbles so much it’s hardly useful as a table, and a loon figurine on the mantle. It’s not a particularly interesting set, but it has a kind of stereotypical Americana charm. The part of the set that I could not find charm in was the backdrop of a lake and trees with no details or variations to help break up the landscape. Such details would have helped give the scenery some much needed character, but instead it looked like the entire play was taking place in a stock photo of a Northeastern American country cabin.
On Golden Pond as a production is, for better or worse, filled with that same stereotypical Americana charm. It’s sort of like a Norman Rockwell painting coming to life on stage. As the play goes on the audience begins to see some cracks in the Rockwellian façade; so perhaps a more apt and seasonally appropriate description is that it’s like the 40-years-later epilogue of a Hallmark romance movie. The aging couple on whom the play focuses has an almost-estranged daughter with a messy love life. The family patriarch, aptly named Norman, seems determined to alienate every person in his life except for his wife. And of course, there is the issue of mortality and age ever looming as Norman struggles with a weak heart and a faulty memory. With that said, none of these issues really become a source of palpable tension until the final scenes, and all that tension is wrapped up without much to-do. So it cannot be said that On Golden Pond has that much more conflict and tension than the average Rockwell painting.
What saves the show from becoming a bore is the excellent chemistry between the main actors. Jesse Braverman (as Norman) and Katherine Ambrosio (as his wife, Ethel), tease and bicker like only two people who have spent most of their lives together can. Braverman also has excellent chemistry with many of his other castmates, while still consistently presenting himself as a cantankerous, prejudiced, old curmudgeon, thoroughly set in his ways with no real desire to ingratiate himself to anyone. His scenes with Melissa Hughes (playing his daughter with whom he has a tense relationship in need of mending) and Christopher Urig (playing his daughter’s new boyfriend who is determined to do right by his partner’s family without taking any guff) are also excellent. Braverman is at his best in his one-on-one scenes where his banter can fly freely and quickly, though this may be as much due to Ernest Thompson’s writing as it is due to Braverman’s stage presence.
All in all, On Golden Pond can be equated to theatrical comfort food. It may not be the most intellectually or emotionally nutritious option out there, but its feel-good story and its witty banter is likely to put most theatergoers at ease and sweep them up in its cozy placidity. So if you’re looking for some light, feel-good entertainment this December, On Golden Pond at Albany Civic Theatre will hit the spot like a cheeseburger and fries after a hard day. I would just recommend getting there close to curtain and skipping the majority of the pre-show music.
Albany Civic Theater presents On Golden Pond by Ernest Thompson, directed by Barbara Davis, runs from December 6-22, at Albany Civic Theater, 235 Second Avenue in Albany, NY. Stage Manager: Regina Baker. Stage Manager: Jackie Amilivia. Assistant Stage Manager: Thorn Burnham. Run Crew: Josh Palmer Cast: Jesse Braverman as Norman Thayer, Jr.; Katherine Ambrosio as Ethel Thayer; Nate Beynon as Charlie Martin; Melissa Hughes as Chelsea Thayer Wayne; Celeste Radiz as Billy Ray, Jr.; and Christopher Urig as Bill Ray. Set design by Peter Kantor. Lighting/Sound design and operation by Oona Newman. Props/Costumes by Peggy Hunter. Hair by Jennifer Canale.
Performance dates are Friday-Sunday December 6-22. Friday and Saturday curtains are at 7:30 pm and Sundays are matinees only at 3:00 pm. Tickets are $18, student tickets are available for $10. Runs approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes with one intermission. Tickets are available online through the Albany Civic Theater website, by phone, or at the door for any performance. Call 518-462-1297 or visit albanycivictheater.org for more information. https://www.albanycivictheater.org/