Article: 9560; Posted: April 10, 2015 at 9:00 p.m.

On it’s face, a story about an aging patriarch walking the edge of death and senility, and battling to connect with his adult daughter shouldn’t provide too many giggles. But the new production of this well-worn sentimental comedy at The Encore Musical Theater in Dexter not only lifts the heart, thanks to a couple of extraordinary performances, but it does, in fact, provide a wealth of laughs.

The scene is a cabin in Maine, and Norman and Ethel Thayer have come to spend the summer as they have for more than forty years. Norman, played by Thomas D. Mahard, is so irascible that it’s hard to conjure what the softer, collected Ethel ever saw in him. But it’s clear, at the start, that the sand is running out of Norman’s glass, and it’s making him angry, frightened and vulnerable. And he is loath to show it.

Mahard is most familiar to audiences from his annual portrayal of Scrooge at The Meadowbrook, and as an acting teacher at Oakland University. He, indeed, puts on a clinic for how to play this tricky character. A retired English professor, an acerbic wit heavy with sarcasm and edge, he has to be sharp as a tack in some scenes, while losing his grip in others, and have it all add up to a character we can believe, empathize with and root for even as he psychologically bruises his grown daughter and tosses out racial epithets and withering criticisms. Norman is all that and more in Mahard’s hands, finding the comedy that is so often rooted in genuine fear.

Ellen Finch, as Ethel, is an Ann Arbor native, but is making her debut at the Encore. She has acted extensively around the country, and has returned home. What took her so long? Finch is so at home in the simple, but very correct set of the well-worn Maine cabin, we’d think it was hers. She communicates with her eyes, seen perfectly in the small theater, why Norman is her knight in shining armor even when he can’t find the road he has been walking for almost fifty summers.

The chemistry between Finch and Mahard is extraordinary, and they should look for more plays to do together.

Sarah Burcon plays the long-suffering Chelsea who visits her parents for the first time in eight years, and brings her fiancée, Bill, played by Todd St. George, and his 13-year old son, Billy Jr., played by John Carlson. While Sarah and Bill go off to Europe to get married, Billy Jr. is left with his soon-to-be step-grandparents for a month. The experience enlivens both the boy and Norman, as the two teach each other new vocabulary and bond better than they do with either Bill Sr. or Chelsea.

Keith Kalinowski as Charlie, the career postman for the lake and one-time boyfriend and ever hopeful suitor of Chelsea brings unexpected and welcome dimension to the role that is often “mailed” in by lesser actors. He beautifully balances the comedic Maine yokel aspect of the character without ever letting you forget that he is genuinely lonely and still pines for the girl he will never have.

The whole production, directed by Daniel Walker, is helped not in a small way by Ernest Thompson’s writing, which is crisp, lively and literate. “Pond” is not a great play. There is hardly a plot. The play is the character and the dialogue, and a situation. Success or failure depends utterly on the Norman and Ethel to make you care and love them.

Lovely, sweet and funny, On Golden Pond should definitely be seen to see a chestnut of a play roasted to a sweet delight by a couple of special actors.

SHOW DETAILS:
On Golden Pond
The Encore Theatre
3126 Broad Street, Dexter
April 9-26; Thursdays at 7:00 p.m., Fridays at 8:00 p.m., Saturdays 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., Sundays at 3:00 p.m.
Price: Adults $32; $30 Seniors, Encore 100 Members; $28 Groups of 10 or more or Children under 17
(734) 268-6200
www.theencoretheatre.org