A Life On Golden Pond
About the author:
For playwright Ernest Thompson, On Golden Pond is more than just a play. From its Broadway debut in 1979 to his popular screen adaptation in 1981, which memorably starred Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn and Jane Fonda and won Thompson an Oscar to the current revival, Thompson is still in awe of his beloved story. The play tells the tale of a retired professor and his wife returning to their lakeside New England summer home. On her way to Europe, their on-the-go daughter surprisingly shows up to leave them with her fiancé's son, making everyone's summer by the pond, a summer filled with mixed generations, bitter memories, humor and heart. Starring in this production are two powerhouse performers: James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams. Here, Thompson shares why he holds this particular play close to his heart and how this talented cast is making history with his personal story of On Golden Pond.
When I wrote On Golden Pond, I couldn't have known I was writing the story of my life; not because it's autobiographical--it's not, other than geographically--but because it seems that the play will never go away. I was an out of work actor; I thought I might talk a handful of friends into reading the script and that would be that. I couldn't have known the Hudson Guild Theatre, a respected off-off-Broadway venue, would have a show fall out and need a new one to open its 1978-79 season, or that there would be a newspaper strike that October, denying the critics the thrill of killing my small play and, presumably, my career.
I never would have suspected that by the time On Golden Pond found its way to Broadway there would already be a production in South Africa, followed by one in Finland, and, eventually, 38 other countries. Or that an usher at the Kennedy Center would tell Henry Fonda about it and that he would shyly suggest to his daughter that it might make an okay movie.
I didn't know I'd spend two years in the 1990s working on a musical version of it, called, Another Summer, or that CBS would ask me to direct Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer in a live television version. I couldn't have imagined that with the dawning of another century there would be productions in both Israel and Lebanon and many of the former Iron Curtain countries, as well. Or that it would be back on Broadway, with a black cast.
The only reason there was never a sitcom based on it, in case anyone wondered, is because I'm stupid and that damn artistic integrity thing got in the way.
The play's themes, if a playwright can be so audacious as to try to speak about his own work with anything approaching authority, include the enduring love of a long marriage, the troubled relationship between a stubborn man and his resentful daughter, and the revivifying effect of a young boy's coming into an old man's life, and these are not concepts that discriminate.
What one will see in James Earl Jones--and anyone interested in watching a legend of the theater, absent for 17 years and giving the performance of his life, should--is an actor unafraid to embrace a character in its totality, the humor for sure, the simmering rage, and, most affectingly, the stunning vulnerability. James Earl attacks the part, he gets all the laughs--mostly, I believe, because he resists the temptation to play for them--but what's gratifying for the playwright and breathtaking for the audience is how adroitly he shows the pain the humor comes from.
I thought I was writing, 27 short years ago, about a family's dysfunction, the uneasy peace a wife and mother strives to maintain and the wistful longing many of us feel for better connections with the people closest to us. Sometimes productions of On Golden Pond go soft, actors and directors yield to the emotion and try to make it a valentine. Not this time, not with James Earl Jones ruling the house on the lake. The director, the talented Leonard Foglia, to his credit, took me at my word that I wanted this run to be the honest one and to give the blunt underpinnings a chance to be seen. James Earl sets a high standard and the rest of the extraordinary cast has no choice but to follow. Leslie Uggams never blinks as his stalwart wife, as strong of heart as she is beautiful. Linda Powell as the conflicted daughter and Alexander Mitchell as the kid, Peter Francis James as his dad and Craig Bockhorn as the mailman, all hold their own against the formidable old man, no small accomplishment.
And life goes on On Golden Pond. Maybe this time we'll part ways, the play and I, but I doubt it. I've written a lot of other plays and films through the years, but there's something about this story that calls to me. Thankfully it seems to speak to other people as well, all over the world, but for me, naturally, it's personal. It's the story of my life.
