Theater Review - Brother’s keeper
Bittersweet Drawer Boy draws on familiar themes
Nobody can accuse Horizon Theatre of using cheap sensationalism to draw an audience with The Drawer Boy. Playwright Michael Healey sets his fictional tale against a factual backdrop involving the creation of a famous stage play. About farming. In the 1970s. In Canada.
Those details alone may not start a stampede to Horizon’s box office. The Drawer Boy resembles a prolonged yarn from “Prairie Home Companion” and relies on some familiar plot points. But the affectionate production of Healey’s sentimental script harvests good-natured laughs and thoughtful notions about reality and pretense.
In 1972, an embarrassingly idealistic young actor named Miles (Justin Welborn) volunteers to work on an Ontario farm to gather raw material on agrarian life for an ensemble-produced play. (Theatre Passe Muraille’s actual work, The Farm Show, became a widely performed landmark in Canadian theater history.)
Miles arrives at the homestead of two bachelor brothers, Morgan (Larry Larson) and Angus (Chris Kayser). Morgan seems as typical a farmhand as Old MacDonald, but Angus, despite his John-the-Baptist beard, resembles a child in a man’s body. Due to an injury suffered in World War II, Angus retains no short-term memories longer than a few minutes, and lost his youthful talent for architectural drawing (hence the title).
Despite his Rain Man-like gift for numbers, Angus forgets new people almost immediately and loses track of complicated tasks. When Morgan injures his hand and asks Angus to fetch him a wet towel, the brother forgets the request whenever he enters the house, and instead returns to Morgan with a “healing” spoonful of tap water each time.
The Drawer Boy’s first act enjoys humor at the expense of artsy city slicker Miles. When Morgan mischievously claims that the farm’s dairy cows seethe with tension despite their placid demeanor, Miles improvises a bovine monologue about their plight, lowing “Mmmust ... mmmake ... mmmilk!” Welborn makes Miles’ earnestness endearing, not just pretentious, and he looks period perfect. With his tie-dyed shirts, sandals and wispy facial hair, he could be on his way to a rehearsal of Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar.
Larson superbly underplays Morgan, especially with the farmer’s deadpan sense of humor as he torments Miles with ominous (and bogus) barnyard duties: “Have you ever gutted anything? Do you know how to use a chainsaw?” But he’s equally adept at conveying Morgan’s tenderness toward his brother, especially when he recounts to Angus their shared history with the practiced cadences of a bedtime story. Only when Morgan rails at the economic challenges that farmers face does Larson lapse into his habit of high-handed declaiming. Most of the time he subtly conveys Morgan’s reserve, gradually revealing that the farmer’s taciturn nature conceals guilt and resentment for his brother.
The Drawer Boy’s two premises, of inquisitive actor and memory-challenged brother, send the story on a predictable path. Miles dramatizes the brothers’ relationship for a theater piece, unaware that he threatens to expose a longtime family secret. The surprise comes when Angus watches Miles’ performance — and his memory drastically improves.
Kayser previously played a rural brother for Horizon in the more violent sibling-rivalry play The Lonesome West. For The Drawer Boy, director Jeff Adler seems to have intentionally miscast the actor. Healey writes Angus to be essentially boyish, but Kayser invariably proves a knowing performer with at least a hint of devilment in his eyes.
Kayser’s Angus never emerges as a holy fool or noble man-child, but just like a cheerful, ordinary chap who simply can’t remember things. We see his wheels turn as he struggles to summon a word like “refrigerator.” It’s like Angus’ entire past is on the tip of his tongue. Kayser’s performance pays off best when Angus reverts briefly to his pre-accident self, and it seems like a whole other actor has appeared on the stage.
The Drawer Boy follows in a line of plays and movies about memory loss, from Memento to Fuddy Meers to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The heroes of these stories frequently find themselves manipulated by others, and Healey lives up to that trend. The play’s most chilling moments come when Morgan tries to sabotage Angus’ newfound memories. He urges Angus to return to his regular routine, like making lunch, with the hopes of resetting Angus’ memory at its “default setting,” rather than let Angus face a painful truth.
Fortunately, the play’s resolution proves more melancholy than melodramatic, and finds a parallel between the white lies people use to protect loved ones and the “untruths” of playacting that can have therapeutic effects. Similarly, the play’s themes of art and farming inform each other in surprisingly sophisticated ways. Just as the farm’s wares nourish the body, Miles’ art can nourish the soul.
Adler’s production brings out the best in The Drawer Boy, which could have easily lapsed into “uplifting” stereotypes about the disabled. Kayser, Larson and Welborn find plenty of humor in the script’s collision of playhouse and farmhouse. As a dramatic theme, however, memory loss is starting to become fallow.