Skip to main contentIf Steinbeck's Lenny and George had finally achieved their own farm, they might have become a bit like Morgan and Angus, two middle-aged bachelors coexisting on an Ontario spread. Morgan much resembles the patient but firm George, a hardworking man's man who cares deeply for the large, Lenny-like Angus, an innocent suffering from brain damage and violent mood shifts.
The two men have been lifelong friends, even marching off to war together, where Angus received his injuries. Other than a brief period in which they were both in love with English women, the pair has peacefully played out the three routine acts of morning, noon and night on their farm. Disruption descends on them in the form of an earnest young actor, Miles, whose theater company has dispatched him into the hinterlands to study farmers for a community-generated project. Through Miles' presence, and his eventual staging of their lives, Morgan and Angus move beyond their habitual patterns toward a greater affection for one another.
Michael Healey's Drawer Boy is a very quiet, gentle play that does not always succeed in skirting superficiality, thus sounding at times like small talk magnified. The primary problem is with the character Miles, who is more cipher than soul. We gather that the young actor's politics are left-leaning and that he's rather ridiculously unversed in rural ways, but never learn anything more substantial. Though raised by Healey, the ethical question of appropriating the lives of others for art is dropped, thereby denying Miles any personal development. The other problem is Healey's ending, which is rather flaccid. The audience is led to believe that a secret between the farmmates, which concerns the English women, might hint at a murderous fate matching that of Curly's wife in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. But the denouement, when it does come, is rather undramatic.
Beth Harper's production is perhaps too reverential to the material. The pace is often inert, especially toward the end when Healey's script wanes. The opening scene between Angus and Morgan is excellent as Harper reveals the relationship between the two men very gradually and with great delicacy. There's also a lovely scene between the two men lying out under the stars. But too often one imagines hearing that same scene's pulsation of frogs and crickets until the final blackout whenever the tempo flags.
This production is, of course, famous for having William Hurt in the cast. Simply, Hurt's performance as Angus is breathtaking work. His achievement is an advertisement for understatement, honesty and, perhaps more important, craft. Hurt has created a physical score for his character that is painstakingly true. It's a performance demanding to be studied.
Hurt is joined by Allen Nause, who brings his usual solidity to the well-meaning Morgan, and by Patrick Wohlmut, who continually grows in stature as a performer and who ably strives to make Miles more than a roughly drawn boy.
Artists Repertory Theatre, 1516 SW Alder St., 241-1278. 7 pm Wednesdays-Thursdays, 8 pm Fridays, 2 and 8 pm Saturdays, 2 and 7 pm Sundays. 11 am matinees on Thursdays, March 25 and April 1, 15 and 22. Closes April 25. $20-$40.
WWeek 2015