'GOLDEN' YEARS: Actors explore age and Alzheimer’s at VPA

WASILLA — Valley Performing Arts’ latest show gets personal for more than one member of the seven-person cast.

Published in 1979, “On Golden Pond” tells the story of Norman and Ethel Thayer, an elderly couple who visit their wilderness cabin on Golden Pond in Maine every summer. However, this visit in particular marks a milestone and a misfortune for Norman: his 80^th birthday (70^th in the local version) and the obvious decline of his memory.

Wasilla dentist Kevin Cochran, a 20-year Alaskan, plays Norman in the show at VPA. A smiley man with a lingering Alabama drawl, Cochran said he enjoyed playing a cantankerous but witty older character.

“He’s kind of an ornery old man … but his bark is worse than his bite,” he said, of Norman.

When asked if he knew anyone with Alzheimer’s, Cochran’s smile faded. Tears came to his eyes and a lump formed in his throat, keeping him from completing his thought for a moment. Both his grandfather and his father had died with the disease, he said.

Cochran also said that, looking back at the 1981 film adaptation of the Ernest Thompson play he saw as a child, his grandfather actually looked a little bit like the Hollywood Norman.

That Norman was played by Henry Fonda, whose daughter, Jane, reportedly bought the film rights to the play with the intent to cast her father in the role. She played Norman’s daughter, Chelsea, reportedly to portray her real-life rocky relationship with her famous father on screen. The performance won Henry Fonda the Academy Award for Best Actor in what turned out to be his final role. The Hollywood version also earned Katharine Hepburn the Oscar for Best Actress and Thompson the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Tori Hicks, who plays Ethel in the VPA show, said the movie was, in part, what inspired her to audition.

“I was caught up with the poignancy of both Henry and Jane Fonda and that this was, in many ways, their own relationship that they were working out,” Hicks said. “It was beautiful.”

Though the actress who plays Chelsea locally, Sierra Hernandez, has not seen the Fonda version of the story, she has her own life experiences to bring to the stage.

A 20-something from Wyoming, Hernandez has acted in several plays — including Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” in which she played the leading role of Abigail — but said she had a hard time being Chelsea in “On Golden Pond,” since she “never had a good relationship” with her mother.

“When I first come in, it’s really hard for me to be like, ‘Mommy!’ and (be) like, excited,” Hernandez said. “I have to pretend like it’s my grandma, because my grandma was more like a mother figure.”

Dana Deedy, who plays the telephone operator, said she didn’t have a hard time getting excited for even her small part, since “On Golden Pond” is her first play.

“I’m just learning everything,” Deedy said.

In addition to the relationships between Ethel, Norman and Chelsea, audience members will also watch minor conflicts arise when Chelsea introduces her new boyfriend, Bill Ray, from Los Angeles and his 13-year-old son, Billy Ray, who have come to the cabin with her.

“He’s really like a fish out of water,” said actor Erik Pierson, of his character Bill.

(As a volunteer for the Alaska Center for the Environment, Pierson’s casting in the role of a city slicker is kind of ironic, but he said he has enjoyed “finding a new personality” for himself to fit the part.)

On top of that, Charlie the mailman — played by Mathew Firmin — is not enthused about the Rays arrival in town, as he was Chelsea’s first boyfriend.

“He doesn’t like it but he’s not gonna show it,” Firmin said.

But Chelsea and Bill soon leave town for Europe, dropping Billy with Charlie and the Thayers at the cabin for a few weeks. This leaves Billy — played by Isaac Hicks, son of Tori Hicks — to be his prankster self, playing jokes on Norman and Ethel.

Though he’s “kind of a smart alec,” Hicks said, the teenager soon learns to care for the elderly couple.

Pierson said he thinks Billy’s character is what will draw younger audiences to a show that might otherwise be perceived as simply a “play about an old couple.”

“I was about 10 or 11 when I saw it, and my big takeaway was that (Billy) swore,” Pierson said. “He was someone close to my age for me to kinda follow.”

Veteran director Larry Burton said he’s just happy to have “a great bunch” of actors to put on one of his favorite plays.

“On Golden Pond” opens at Valley Performing Arts in Wasilla on Friday, April 1 at 7 p.m. The show runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through April 17.

Tickets are $20 general admission or $18 for students and seniors and can be purchased at the door, online at valleyperforminarts.org, or by calling 373-0195.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.