You may not think a play set in rural Ontario, Canada, is worth a New York minute, let alone two hours — but if you pass up “The Drawer Boy,” it’s your loss.
Michael Healey’s drama, set in 1972, concerns a pair of farmers much like George and Lenny in Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” Here, it’s Morgan (Brad Fryman) who takes care of the mentally impaired Angus (William Laney). Gravely injured in World War II, Angus can barely remember anything from one moment to the next. And yet he’s something of a mathematical savant, able to count the stars in the cloudless sky — 19,445 to be exact.
Into their life comes Miles (Alex Fast), an eager young actor and writer who asks the farmers if he can stay with them for a few weeks while researching a new play. Morgan agrees, though not without giving Miles some chores to do.
Nor can he resist having a little fun at Miles’ expense, asking the naïve young man to strain cow poop for undigested pieces of corn to feed the chickens, and making him get up at 3 in the morning for “crop rotation.”
“Have you ever gutted anything?” Morgan asks the horrified actor. “Do you know how to use a chainsaw?”
Miles overhears Morgan remind Angus how they came to live together, after the deaths of the English women they married shortly after the war. Later, when Angus sees these same events depicted at the first rehearsal of Miles’ play, memories of the past start flooding back — with fateful results.
This subtle character study about the transformative power of theater is both amusing and affecting. Under Alexander Dinelaris’ sensitive direction, Fryman and Laney deliver moving and dignified performances that never feel condescending, while Fast makes a terrific comic foil.
“The Drawer Boy” — the title refers to another of Angus’ hidden talents — is the sort of low-key gem that’s easy to overlook. Now getting its belated New York premiere by the Oberon Theater Ensemble, this award-winning, 1999 Canadian drama makes one wonder what other theatrical treasures might be imported from the Great White North.