BWW Reviews: To Tell The Truth: THE DRAWER BOY

Michael Healey's "The Drawer Boy," now at The Vagabond Players in Baltimore's Fells Point, has at its heart, a single question:  Is it better to live with a lie which is comfortable and pleasant, or to face a truth which is not?

 Healey's play takes place in the summer of 1972, on a small farm in central Ontario, Canada, run by two childhood friends and veterans of World War II. Morgan (Tony Colavito) is a gruff, no-nonsense farmer who lives in his overalls and boots, while Angus (David Gamble), seems eternally at the kitchen counter, slicing bread, making sandwiches and remembering very little of what is transpiring around him.

Having no short-term memory a la Christopher Nolan's "Memento," Angus is ever pre-occupied. He counts the stars in the sky, he smooths the walls with his fingers, he drops to his hands and knees on the kitchen floor, searching for something, we know not what.  Neither does he, for that matter, at least not at first.

Still, there is balance.  Morgan milks the cows and bales the hay while Angus keeps The Farm's finances, adding and multiplying figures in his head with "Rain Man"-like precision. When Angus has headaches which leave him agitated and confused, Morgan puts him to bed. It's a "Of Mice and Men"-style relationship.

The balance, however, cannot be maintained; otherwise there'd be no play of interest, so enter Miles (Gregory Beck Jericho), a young actor/playwright, who arrives on The Farm, seeking literary inspiration.  Miles takes the role of the audience, asking the questions we all want to know--what happened to Angus? Why has Morgan taken on the responsibility of caring for him? What's the truth?

It's a logical question for Miles to ask; he is, afterall, a playwright, and while the theater specializes in entertainment, it does so with an eye on reality, the lessons of life. There's a particularly intriguing scene where Miles explains the storyline of Shakespeare's HAMLET to Angus. For Angus, his mind different from birth, damaged by war, he struggles to see where actor ends and just "Miles" begins. The lines between player and person, story and reality, between truth and the convenient fiction that has allowed Angus and Morgan to live and work together for 30 years, blur. This gives the play its tension, mystery and wonder, the stuff of which lengthy after-show conversations are made of.   

Tony Colavito's Morgan conveys just the right mix of man-of-the-earth stoicism, brotherly caring and repressed pain, not to mention a wicked sense of humor particularly when it comes to playing on Miles' gullibility. Gamble does an exemplary job as the man-child Angus, lending the role dignity as he portrays a man lost in the fog of his own mind, stumbling about in search of signs that will lead him to clarity about himself, Morgan and the lives they once led.Jericho plays Miles with appropriate city-boy naivete, but proves at the end that he can give as good as he gets. 

The set is simple, rustic, and was immediately noted to be a farm-and-barn by my theater companion who observed the telltale horseshoe nailed to an outer beam.

The Drawer Boy runs at the Vagabond Players, 806 South Broadway, now through March 28th, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. For details and ticket information call 410-563-9135 or visit www.vagabondplayers.org.

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