Michael Healey’s play The Drawer Boy playing at the Finborough is a touching story of memory, friendship, and guilt. It’s a wonderfully nuanced text which explores the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive and the stories we tell that illuminate our lives. Many of the reviews and articles I’ve read about this particular production and the play in general talk about the play’s theme of the power of theatre. I suppose this is a valid point as Healey interviewed a community of farmers 30 years after a troupe of actors had come and created a show called “The Farm Show” based on interviews they had done in the community.
The Drawer Boy follows one actor Miles who stays with two men, gruff farmer Morgan and his best friend Angus who suffered brain-damage from a bomb in WWII. Although the conceit is that Miles overhears Morgan telling Angus a story of their lives in tragic fairy tell fashion, a nightly ritual that Angus in his reverted child like state insists upon. Miles, in turn, uses this story for his play. When Morgan and Angus go to see a rehearsal of it, a switch in Angus’s mind suddenly turns on. He remembers things and his short term memory loss shows an immense improvement. It’s the power of theatre! Or is it?
During the interval, I couldn’t help but overhear the people sitting next to me talking about Angus’s transformation. So I chimed in. We discussed the way the brain works and how images and stories can affect the brain. During the second half, this translated into the rest of the play, as we find that stories are what makes theatre have any power at all. Angus’s memories aren’t wholly his own. Their mixed in with the stories Morgan has told him over the years to ease his friend’s life (and his own guilt). Theatre is just a vessel, it is the stories shared that make the impact. I believe human beings innately are storytellers. Some of us just don’t realise it.
The structure of the text is deceptively simple. And Eleanor Rhode’s masterful staging compliments it beautifully. Repetition (essential to memory, storytelling, and theatre) is wonderfully employed. Not having read the play, I’m not sure whether some of the staging is a part of the text or not, or whether Rhodes took the repetition of the text and pushed it evocatively one step further. A testament to her direction.
The play opens with Angus stumbling in the morning, looking slightly lost and confused. He see’s the wall, touches it as if in ritual, searches for something, makes a sandwich. Repeat. We feel that this is something he’s done everyday for a very very long time. Periodically he looks under the table. He makes another sandwich. He asks the same questions. Bits an pieces of stories are told. He counts the stars. Morgan tells Angus his nightly story. The first half takes it time, as we glide into the repetitive life of these two men. Like Miles, we are just visitors. And at first, I began to wonder about the repetition, about the meaning behind the nuances and rituals of Morgan and Angus’s friendship.
The second half puts all the pieces of the puzzle together. The pace completely shifts and Angus’s own excitement and mental anguish come full circle. The questions, the touching of the wall, counting the stars – all makes sense. We can’t help but ache for Angus – in his blur of memory and illusion. Powerful performances from John Bett as Angus, who was able to convey the brain-damage of a once exceptionally bright young man with dignity, and Neil McCaul as Morgan, who lived in every nook and cranny of the cynical, but loyal and guilt ridden farmer. A wonderfully nuanced text and brilliant staging.
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