The Drawer Boy impresses
The Drawer Boy is a two-act play set in 1972 on a farm near Clinton, Ontario. There are only three characters: the farm's two owners, Morgan and Angus, and Miles Potter, a young actor from Toronto doing research for a collectively-created theatre piece about farming.
That brief description alone left me a little skeptical to see the play, to be honest I didn't think a play about farming would affect me in any way. But, I let my doubts fall to the floor and sat down in the Grand Theatre.
For starters, the theatre was packed. Something I wasn't expecting considering it was a Saturday afternoon, and this impressed me.
The set was an antique kitchen, complete with a front porch. The wallpaper was falling off the walls, the chairs were creaky and the yellow stove was authentic to the play's 1970's time period. I looked at that kitchen and it reminded me of a few farms I had been to when I was younger. I could picture the smell, I could feel the coolness in the air, and even though it was only a set on a stage, I felt like the farmers who owned that tiny well-lived in kitchen spent many mornings watching the sun rise while they rubbed sleep out of their eyes.
I think it's safe to say that from the minute The Drawer Boy began, I was caught within the story. Angus opens the play, sitting in a chair as the sun rises, while listening to a sad-nostalgic song. Angus is a well mannered farmer, quirky, innocent and forgetful. A character that seems like he could do no harm.
Angus' partner in crime, Morgan, stumbles in from outside from what looks to be a hard days of work, eats the sandwich that Angus just made and retires to his bedroom. You can tell that this farmer is the one who runs the household, he is frank, with a dry sense of humour and he is definitely my favourite character in the play.
As the play progresses, we're introduced to the shockingly naive Toronto native Miles, who visits the farm in hopes of gaining farming experience and using that new knowledge as a way to advance his character in a play he's working on in Toronto. He is, as I already mentioned, naive, but willing and energetic. He's also a catalyst in solving some of the mysteries in the story.
We see throughout the play that Angus is being forgetful, a plot that is sad and frustrating for the viewer. We later learn, through a story that Morgan tells Angus, that he was injured in London during the war, and he now has a metal plate in his head. The city boy Miles, overhears this story, and decides to put the plot in his Toronto play which leads to some tiffs between him and Morgan. Angus actually loves the idea, and crazily enough, the addition allows him to regain parts of his memory.
I don't want to give too much of it away, because the play is like one of those movies that leaves you wondering why certain things are happening, and why certain people are acting the way they are. In the end, all of those questions and uncertainties are answered. It left me in tears... almost!
The Drawer Boy is a wonderful tale of two lifelong friends who stick together through thick and thin. It tells the struggles of a friendship that has lasted this long and makes you wish your friends will be this faithful to you years down the road.
The Drawer Boy runs until November 8 at the Grand Theatre.
That brief description alone left me a little skeptical to see the play, to be honest I didn't think a play about farming would affect me in any way. But, I let my doubts fall to the floor and sat down in the Grand Theatre.
For starters, the theatre was packed. Something I wasn't expecting considering it was a Saturday afternoon, and this impressed me.
The set was an antique kitchen, complete with a front porch. The wallpaper was falling off the walls, the chairs were creaky and the yellow stove was authentic to the play's 1970's time period. I looked at that kitchen and it reminded me of a few farms I had been to when I was younger. I could picture the smell, I could feel the coolness in the air, and even though it was only a set on a stage, I felt like the farmers who owned that tiny well-lived in kitchen spent many mornings watching the sun rise while they rubbed sleep out of their eyes.
I think it's safe to say that from the minute The Drawer Boy began, I was caught within the story. Angus opens the play, sitting in a chair as the sun rises, while listening to a sad-nostalgic song. Angus is a well mannered farmer, quirky, innocent and forgetful. A character that seems like he could do no harm.
Angus' partner in crime, Morgan, stumbles in from outside from what looks to be a hard days of work, eats the sandwich that Angus just made and retires to his bedroom. You can tell that this farmer is the one who runs the household, he is frank, with a dry sense of humour and he is definitely my favourite character in the play.
As the play progresses, we're introduced to the shockingly naive Toronto native Miles, who visits the farm in hopes of gaining farming experience and using that new knowledge as a way to advance his character in a play he's working on in Toronto. He is, as I already mentioned, naive, but willing and energetic. He's also a catalyst in solving some of the mysteries in the story.
We see throughout the play that Angus is being forgetful, a plot that is sad and frustrating for the viewer. We later learn, through a story that Morgan tells Angus, that he was injured in London during the war, and he now has a metal plate in his head. The city boy Miles, overhears this story, and decides to put the plot in his Toronto play which leads to some tiffs between him and Morgan. Angus actually loves the idea, and crazily enough, the addition allows him to regain parts of his memory.
I don't want to give too much of it away, because the play is like one of those movies that leaves you wondering why certain things are happening, and why certain people are acting the way they are. In the end, all of those questions and uncertainties are answered. It left me in tears... almost!
The Drawer Boy is a wonderful tale of two lifelong friends who stick together through thick and thin. It tells the struggles of a friendship that has lasted this long and makes you wish your friends will be this faithful to you years down the road.
The Drawer Boy runs until November 8 at the Grand Theatre.
