‘On Golden Pond’ at Bristol Riverside: Even an old curmudgeon can change

On Golden Pond, through Feb. 10 at the Bristol Riverside Theatre, is a kindly play edging on the sentimental. It remains one of our rare plays about aging, however, probably our best known, and therein lies much of its value. In this attentive production, the Bristol Riverside folks show they know both their play and their audience.

Throughout, three ladies in back of me argued about whether this was “the same as the movie” or “a different version.” If you answered (A), you win a free winter in West Palm Beach: This, Ernest Thompson’s 1979 play, is the source of the 1981 Oscar-winning film with Henry and Jane Fonda, Katherine Hepburn, and Dabney Coleman. What the movie could do that the play doesn’t is show you the pond.

The play does better: It makes you imagine it. Scenic designer Charles Morgan gives us a lovely stage evocation of Norman and Ethel Thayer’s summer cottage, with floating roof frames, storm windows, dawn light slanting in. We hear the loons and insects, can almost smell the unseen water.

In this family drama, the question is, “Can a dysfunctional family survive growing pains?” This darn good question is what saves the play. Norman Thayer, played ably by Bristol Riverside stalwart Keith Baker, is the crux. He’s turning 80, and when on his own, he forgets things, gets confused, feels feeble and afraid. His wife, Ethel (energetic Jeanne Lehman), tries to stay light about everything. She keeps it all together while Norman is busy (in his own fears) falling apart.

Compared to Fonda’s, Baker’s Norman isn’t quite as dislikable initially and is more vulnerable: There’s a wide ability gap between him and bustling Ethel. With his rich, fudgy speaking voice worlds away from the reedy, querulous Fonda, Baker is great at showing Norman’s fear — and how he lights up when others are around, especially if he can be grumpy at their expense. Baker leans into the great one-liners. While jerking around young Billy Ray (winning Henry Parker), Norman says: “You should meet my father.” Billy: “Is he still alive?” Norman: “No, but you should meet him.”

As directed by Bristol founding director Susan B. Atkinson, this production is good at exploring how, given time, our initial feelings can change. They have to; everything depends on it. Norman has to do most of the changing and does. Alienated daughter Chelsea (played with delicious awkwardness by Eleanor Handley, more human than supermodel-ish Jane Fonda) brings over her new beau, a dentist named Bill (Danny Vaccaro, who does a tricky part very well). Norman dislikes him instantly, and their getting-to-know-you scene is maybe the best thing in the play, closing with a handshake that you feel is well earned. And Norman falls in love with young Billy. During Billy’s month with the Thayers, Norman forgets his cane, too excited to get out fishing. And his rapprochement with Chelsea is fitful, but, we feel, full of future.

Which, to the play’s credit, is not all sunshine. The very end, when Norman needs that nitroglycerin, lets Ethel show how scared she is, and yet how, in the midst of fear, she accepts. A lesson Baker beautifully shows Norman learning — as long as meanwhile he gets to play curmudgeon.