Review: 'The Drawer Boy' at Saint John Theatre Company, New Brunswick, Canada
Aaron Kropf, Canadian East Coast Columnist/Critic
New Brunswick Canada’s Saint John Theatre Company presentation of Michael Healey’s Governor General award-winning play The Drawer Boy was wonderful. The Drawer Boy is the story of a Toronto actor (Miles played here by Cameron Secord) coming to a rural Ontario farm to learn about farming and find inspiration for a show he’s helping to create. The farm is operated by lifelong friends Angus (Gilbert Boyce) and Morgan (Tom MacArthur). However, The Drawer Boy is really about the unraveling of Angus and Morgan’s history, throughout the production we find out what really happened, little by little, to the drawer boy in Morgan’s oft-told story.
Gilbert Boyce takes on the challenging role of Angus and does so with aplomb. Boyce’s depth of character is everything I look for in a character. It takes great skill to portray extreme physical pain without it seeming over the top, and Boyce succeeds at doing just that. You feel for Angus as one of his headaches come on, then comes the heartbreak as he slowly realizes that the story he’s loved and believed in for many years isn’t true. Boyce’s Angus is the star of this production.
Morgan, a character with much more nuance than Angus, is one that comes across as being much gruffer than he actually is. Tom MacArthur notes in his bio that he’s been playing the grumpy old man for many years, and he shows his mastery of this type of character in The Drawer Boy. However, he is much more than that. The way he has looked after his friend Angus for many years and the concern he has for the emotional state of his friend is astounding. You can almost hear his heartbreak as he watches his friend realize the story he’s been telling him for years isn’t true. Everything he’s been doing to protect Angus over the years comes crashing down. It was gut-wrenching to see Morgan struggle to get Angus to forget the truth and believe the story of the drawer boy once more.
The third in this trio, Cameron Secord as Miles, didn’t always hit the mark in his portrayal of the actor from Toronto. At times Secord’s Miles was just overly exaggerated, a caricature of a Toronto actor. Though this was disappointing for much of the show he turned it around by the end of the production. After angering Morgan by using the story of the drawer boy in his play Secord presented a character with range and subtlety that should have been present at the beginning. By the end of the show, I felt just as much for Miles’ role as the catalyst in the conflict between Morgan and Angus as I did for the breakdown of that relationship.
The work put into creating the world around these characters should also be noted. Particularly the beautiful set design and construction by Andrea Evans. The simplicity of the design invokes images of rural Ontario farmhouses. Bob Doherty’s direction should be applauded, to put together a show that was supposed to have live in-person (which were canceled just days before because of an increase in Covid cases in the region) and streamed performances I’m sure presents many challenges. The whole team needs to be commended for aiding in telling this wonderful story.
Saint John Theatre Company’s production of The Drawer Boy runs each evening at 7:30 p.m. through December 5th. Don’t miss out on this truly Canadian story.
Photo credit: Drew Murdock
To purchase tickets for this streamed production, visit: showtix4U.com
Directed by Bob Doherty