‘The Drawer Boy’ a well-told story

“The Drawer Boy” gives live theater a good name.

This Canadian comedy-drama is a simple, intimate, well-crafted story that grabs your attention from the first scene and holds it. Two hours later, you re-emerge having had some good laughs, a good cry and a few satisfying philosophical debates in your head.

Michael Healey’s quiet story of two Ontario farmers is a nearly ideal vehicle for the Actor’s Repertory Theatre (ARt), the professional theater in its rookie season at Spokane Falls Community College’s Spartan Playhouse.

Or maybe I should say ARt is the perfect vehicle for this play. Acting is, as the theater’s name implies, the theater’s priority. All three actors – Reed McColm, Michael Weaver and Andy Greenfield – give touching, naturalistic performances devoid of histrionics. The theater is so cozy you can read every nuance in the character’s faces and catch every subtlety of Healey’s excellent script. The farmhouse set by John Hofland has a beautiful rustic simplicity and the direction by Tralen Doler is intelligent and admirably restrained.

The story takes place in 1972 when Miles, a callow and naïve Toronto actor, shows up at the farmhouse of bachelor farmers Morgan and Angus. Miles asks if he can hang around as a farmhand for a week or two while he researches a cooperatively written play about farm life (there was, in fact, just such a Toronto theater project in the 1970s).

From the first scene, it becomes clear that one of the farmers is not quite right in the head. Angus is “simple.” He can’t remember things for more than a few seconds. Miles has to reintroduce himself to Angus every day, and sometimes many times a day.

Morgan is kind and patient with Angus, but beyond that he appears to be the classic hard-headed farmer. His disdain for the citified actor is obvious. A lot of the play’s humor is of the let’s-make-fun-of-the-city-kid variety. At one point, Morgan tells Miles that “rotating the crops” means digging up all of the alfalfa in the morning and replanting it in another field for the afternoon. At another point, he tells Miles to muck out the stables, and hands him a dinner fork.

Yet this is just a cover for Healey’s real story, the troubled history of Morgan and Angus. We learn one version of the story early, in a tale that Morgan tells to Angus every day. Angus was an artist, a dreamer, a sketcher of blueprints (thus, the “drawer boy,” as in one who draws). The two friends served in World War II together, met two English girls and fell in love. Angus was hit in the head by bomb shrapnel, and his memory “escaped.” Yet they came back to Canada, married the two girls, and lived happily until their two wives died in a car crash.

The real story – the one that Morgan doesn’t want to tell Angus – comes out slowly, under the gentle influence of Miles. To Healey’s credit, this “secret” is not sensational – it doesn’t deal with murder or sexuality or any of the things it would inevitably turn out to be in Hollywood’s hands. Yet it is touching and sad, and has the immeasurable advantage of ringing true.

Greenfield, a Montana actor, has a great ‘70s look with his Neil Young muttonchops. He also conveys just the right amount of earnestness and gullibility, yet he also demonstrates that in the end, his character is neither stupid nor weak.

Weaver, ARt’s artistic director, is fascinating as Angus, who comes across usually as a good-natured Lenny in “Of Mice and Men.” Yet occasionally, Weaver shows an angry side, as in a terrifying scene where he repeatedly roars out his need to hear the truth.

McColm is masterful as Morgan, demonstrating a flair for comedy in the first act. When Miles asks him how he “feels” about farming, McColm waits a perfect beat before deadpanning, “Well, it’s an emotional roller coaster.”

Yet in the second act, McColm uses his rich, well-trained voice to brilliant dramatic advantage. Literally shaking with emotion, he sits on the farm stoop and tells the true story of their lives. The audience remains absolutely still.

After this catharsis, Healey leaves us with questions to ponder: Is a compassionate lie kinder than the brutal truth? Are there limits to friendship and loyalty? Can art truly change people’s lives?

One point needs no debate. A good story, well told, can make great theater.