ECT digs into The Drawer Boy
On the surface, it’s a play about a play.
But plow deeper into Michael Healey’s The Drawer Boy, about the origins of a Canadian stage classic on farming, and it’s also a look at unlikely friendships and the healing power of art.
Taking its cue from a true story, it follows a young Toronto actor who stays in a rural Ontario farm in the early ’70s to research the play that would become the collective creation The Farm Show. A landmark play for its time, it reflected Canadian culture like few plays ever had. It premiered in Clinton, Ont., before touring the country.
“It was an attempt to create an authentically Canadian style of theatre that’s based on the stories of Canadians, as opposed to importing theatre from Britain or from the States,” says director Monica Dufault. “That was the big push in the ’70s, to put our own voices on stage.” From that framework, The
Drawer Boy takes a closer look at the friendship which develops between the Toronto actor (Landon Doak) and the two middle-aged farmers — one suspicious (J.D. Nicholsen), the other brain damaged during the Second World War (Tony Munch) — whose stories unravel something long buried between them.
The play premiered at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille in 1999, and was scooped by Ed Mirvish Productions to play at the Winter Garden Theatre. It won a Governor General’s Award, a Chalmers Award and the Dora Maver Moore Award for Outstanding New Play.
Healey will have a heavy presence in Niagara theatre this year — in addition to The Drawer Boy, the Shaw Festival will stage his new political comedy 1979, about Joe Clark’s brief tenure as prime minister.
“I just think he captures dialogue so well,” says Dufault. “One of the skills of a good playwright is to encapsulate the world of these characters within the words that they speak.”
It’s also a play which should resonate with farmers in Niagara.
“The rhythm of their speech and attitudes to life are certainly captured by Michael Healey’s dialogue.”
Dufault views the show as a brilliant companion piece to The
Farm Show, and even secured Marc Desormeaux’s original score from the Mirvish production.
“It’s about the power of theatre and storytelling to affect us, to transform us,’ she says. “And it’s also about the joy of hearing your own story told for you.”
It’s the second show of Essential Collective Theatre’s 2016/17 season, following a touring production of Wendy Hill’s suffragette drama
The Fighting Days in October.