Longtime friends together again for acclaimed play
The relationship between singeractor Gary Farmer and Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre cofounder Brian Richmond goes back 40 years, to when the theatre community in Canada was much smaller than it is today.
Theirs is an enduring bond. The two longtime friends are collaborating once more on The Drawer Boy, which runs at The Roxy Theatre through July 15 and represents Farmer’s third role in a Blue Bridge production since 2009. “He called me one day to ask me if I’d like to do a role in Victoria, so I decided to come back up here and work the theatre, which I always loved,” Farmer said.
Richmond considers Farmer one of the best actors in Canada, and said he’s happy to involve the New Mexico-based performer whenever possible. And Farmer is happy to return the favour. When Richmond was the artistic director for Toronto’s groundbreaking Theatre Passe Muraille in the late 1980s, Richmond was one of the first theatre directors to give him a shot. “For Brian to cast me in these parts, to continue to push that somehow, God bless him,” Farmer said. “There’s not many like him.”
Richmond’s son, Jacob Richmond, is directing the actor from Ohsweken, Ont., in The Drawer Boy. Farmer was here in 2017 for Our Town and in 2012 for Of Mice and Men. Unsurprisingly, Farmer was under Brian Richmond’s direction for a mid-’80s production of Of Mice and Men at the Magnus Theatre in Thunder Bay, Ont. “There’s a whole history that culminates with this play,” Farmer said.
Indeed there is, above and beyond the fact Farmer and The Drawer Boy playwright Michael Healey once shared an agent. For his role as Angus, a rural Ontario farmer scarred by battle in the Second World War, he relied on some first-person experience. Farmer’s resumé includes work with iconic Toronto director, Paul Thompson, who played a key role in creating 1972’s The Farm Show. To better understand farming, Thompson and a troupe of actors in the production at the time travelled to Clinton, Ont., in order to speak with those whose lives would be portrayed in the play.
The Farm Show was a runaway success and is arguably the biggest Indigenous theatre hit in Canadian history (making matters more serendipitous, the late Jerry Franken, who played one of the farmers, was a close friend of Farmer).
In that sense, The Farm Show played a crucial role in the creation of The Drawer Boy. Healey’s play retraces the process in which
The Farm Show was written, with Farmer and Michael Armstrong as farmers and Griffin Leonard Lea as a young actor/researcher. The play is as decorated as they come, having won numerous awards since its 1999 première, including a Governor General’s Literary Award.
Farmer, 65, has flirted with Hollywood notoriety at points, appearing well over 100 movies and TV shows. His biggest achievements came during a 10year stretch that saw him play a central role in Jim Jarmusch’s 1995 indie favourite, Dead Man, with Johnny Depp; he would reprise the role of Nobody in 1999’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, another cult classic from Jarmusch. He also appeared alongside Marlon Brando, Edward Norton, and Robert De Niro in 2001’s The
Score, and in the Robert Redfordproduced film The Dark Wind.
Farmer has had his share of ups and downs during his career, and said his move to the U.S. (where he spends most of his time gigging with his blues-rock band, Gary Farmer and the Troublemakers) was done for “mostly political reasons.” He’s done time on several arts advisory boards in Canada, and feels the plight of Indigenous communities in Canada are not on enough people’s radars.
Acting helps him cope with the stress. “When it comes to the stories, all that changes. You forget all that,” he said. “And this is a beautiful story.”