Reed McColm, Glenn Nelson, Paul-Ford Manguelle in The rawer Boy, Shadow Theatre. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

With The Drawer Boy, Shadow Theatre revives a play that both in itself and its inspiration proved a defining moment for a truly Canadian theatre — and does it proud.

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In Michael Healey’s heartwarming and tough-minded 1999 hit, a naive and earnest young actor from a Toronto theatre company arrives at the door of an Ontario farmhouse. Miles is on location to research farm life for an original collective production. That this imagines, in an amused and amusing way, the art/ real life collision in the creation of  the ‘70s Canuck landmark The Farm Show, is telling, to be sure. And the clash of urban and rural will make for some affectionate comedy in the course of a play whose complications expand in absorbing, fascinating layers.

Notebook in hand, Miles (newcomer Paul-Ford Manguelle) is full of questions for the two elderly bachelor farmers, old friends, who live there. “Do cows mind being milked?” he asks Morgan (Glenn Nelson), the crustier, more cogent of the pair, clearly in charge. Miles insists “I’ve done hard things.” After all, he played a hedgehog in a show last year, and it was three hours long!

Reed McColm, Glenn Nelson, Paul-Ford Manguelle in The Drawer Boy, Shadow Theatre. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux

Angus (Reed McColm) is simple, his memory damaged by a World War II head injury. And in his relationship with Morgan, beautifully set forth by the two veteran actors, is a life-sustaining story — a story of friendship, memory, and loss that unlocks other stories. The Drawer Boy confirms in a poignant and dramatic way the power of storytelling and theatre itself. And it’s set in motion when Miles overhears Morgan re-telling to Angus the oft-told narrative of how they came to be where they are, and borrows the real-life story as his contribution to the theatre collective. Theatre seems to unlock Angus’s memory, and the seam between life and art opens dangerously.

Manguelle captures the eager-beaver self-importance of the young actor, who’s gradually struck by the realization, first, that he’s the butt of Morgan’s deadpan mockery, and then by knowing that his certainties aren’t weight-bearing.

Nelson’s sardonic Morgan, who bustles through his world stiff-legged and at high speed, more irascible than taciturn. Seeing the care-giver escalate to panic as the lines between fiction and truth get blurred (or clarified) is a real achievement. McColm the production finds an endearing Angus, bewildered a lot of the time, living in a foggy world lit by disconcerting flashes of the past.

Reed McColm, Paul-Ford Manguelle and Glenn Nelson in The Drawer Boy, Shadow Theatre. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux.

In John Hudson’s spacious production, the characters inhabit an atmospheric old farmhouse that’s designed in glorious detail, down to the screen door and the linoleum, by Daniel vanHeyst. His lighting calibrates time, dawn to dusk, in rural southern Ontario. The scenes are separated by time and Dave Clarke’s apt sound score, cranked a little high perhaps.

After all these years The Drawer Boy remains ready, funny and insightful as it is, to ask perpetually hard questions about who owns stories, and who gets to tell them. It’s a moving experience. If you haven’t seen the play it’s your moment; it you have, it’s time to renew.

REVIEW

The Drawer Boy

Theatre: Shadow Theatre

Written by: Michael Healey

Starring: Reed McColm, Glenn Nelson, Paul-Ford Manguelle

Where: Varscona Theatre, 10329 83 Ave.

Running: through Feb. 4

Tickets: shadowtheatre.org