Play in Sandy ‘shines’ light on old age and family

Up in Sandy, the Sandy Actors Theater (SAT) is performing “On Golden Pond,” written by Ernest Thompson, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, and at 3 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 19.

And for a small community theater, the group does a pretty bang-up job.

To shed some light on the play, the story takes place in a vacation house on Golden Pond in Maine, where Norman and Ethyl Thayer have come to spend their 40th summer. While there, the Thayers are visited by their daughter, Chelsea – who is rather estranged from her overbearing father – and her fiancé Bill, and his son, Billy, for Norman’s 80th birthday. Through the interactions of the characters, the family struggles emerge but are also settled, along with coping with the realities of death and old age.

For a small theater filled with experienced and even first time actors, the show – as said before – is pretty good and choreographed really well. Some parts had to be taken out from the original movie script (mostly scenes from outdoors and on the pond), but even then, most of the setting still revolves around the cabin so there’s hardly any problem in how the story is conveyed, overall.

As for opening night (the appearance I saw), everything was pretty solid. Except for the screen door, but that’s because Norman kept forgetting to fix it up until the start of the second act.

A few characters and their actors I’d like to highlight from that night actually would be; Anita Sorel (Ethyl Thayer); and Jim Butterfield (Norman Thayer). A reason for this is that the story revolves around both of them equally, the first and last scenes basically dedicated to them. [a few things about butterfield here and how he did a great job being an old frump] [stuff about sorel being supportive of norman and how she manages to fix his and chelsea’s relationship]

However, there were some parts that felt a bit rough in the acting. It is true that this is a community theater where people of all statures and knowledge come and participate, but there were some parts – when we’re introduced to Chelsea, for example – in general that felt rushed and under-explained. It could just be how the actor, Lisa Sheppard, portrayed her on opening night, but I think there could have been a little more passion.

For the acting and story as a whole, I’d give “On Golden Pond” a 3.5 out of 5 rating. The story was great and touching, and the actors shined throughout, if not all of them as equally.

For more on the SAT, visit: sandyactorstheatre.org to buy tickets, plan in advanced for upcoming showings of “The Shadow Box” (March 31 – April 23) and “Godspell” (June 2-25), sign up for workshops, or even jump in to act, as well.