The plot focuses on an aging couple Ethel and Norman Thayer, who spend each summer at their home on a lake called Golden Pond.

The play explores the often turbulent relationship the young woman shared with her father growing up, and the difficulties faced by a couple in the twilight years of a long marriage.

Norman seems to suffer a heart attack (whilst picking up a box of his mother-in-law's heavy china) but recovers, and the pair leave their home along Golden Pond.

After a summer break, it reopened with the same cast on September 12 at the Century Theatre, a small playhouse in the basement of the Paramount Hotel, where it ran for an additional 256 performances.

After 19 previews, a Broadway revival with an African American cast directed by Leonard Foglia and produced by Jeffrey Finn opened on April 7, 2005 at the Cort Theatre, where it ran for 93 performances.

In 2001, CBS aired a live television adaptation of the play that was publicized heavily in the press due to the reunion of The Sound of Music stars Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer in the lead roles.