The Soul Gift Theatre Group of Margaree are bringing their production of Ernest Thompson’s “On Golden Pond” to Strathspey Place for a three night run. This production, which played to appreciative audiences in Cheticamp and Ingonish over the past year, runs April 15 to April 17, Friday to Sunday, at 8 pm at the Mabou venue.
Jim Mustard and Diana McKinnon (who also directed) star as the elderly, bickering married couple, Norman and Ethel Thayer (made famous by the movie version starring Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn). As Norman faces the prospect of a final summer at their beloved lakeside cottage, Ethel tries to reconcile Norman with their estranged daughter, Chelsea (Mariève Therriault). Chelsea complicates matters by bringing the 12 year old son, Charlie (James Chiasson), of her new love interest.
Also appearing in the cast are Réjean Aucoin and Émilien Cormier.
Reviewer Rankin MacDonald, in the Inverness Oran, said of this production: “On Golden Pond is a beautiful piece that tells us never to give up on life, and (The Soul Gift Theatre Group’s) production did just that on a snowy evening in February.” MacDonald also praised Mustard’s performance saying: “His performance as an aging, fearful and at times bitter old man is subtle, and he draws us to the character so that we don’t write him off as another cantankerous old ‘poop’.”
Diana McKinnon will be familiar to theatre audiences in Inverness and Victoria counties for her performance last summer as author Isak Dinesen, also known Baroness Karin Blixen, in “Lucifer’s Child” by William Luce, another Soul Gift Theatre Group production. This one woman show chronicled the life of Dinesen, the character played by Meryl Streep in “Out of Africa”, after she returned to her native Denmark.
