The Drawer Boy

by Toby Zinman

This finely crafted play by Canadian playwright Michael Healey makes you wait through a slow and measured first act. Director Andrew Chown, refusing to placate the audience's impatience, toughs out long silences while somebody tidies a kitchen or makes sandwiches, creating an atmosphere thick with realism. The payoff for our waiting comes in Act II, when mysteries are solved and relationships are explained, although there is never any action or shocking revelations. Whatever suspicions we hold through the intermission -- suspicions cultivated by cheesy plays we've all seen a hundred times -- turn out to be false; the surprises are human surprises, not theatrical surprises.

On a farm in Ontario, two middle-aged men, Morgan (Dan Kern) and Angus (Jim Bergwall), share a hardworking and plain life. It is obvious from the start that Angus is not quite right, and we discover that his memory is damaged: He remembers very little of the past and retains very little of the present. Miles (Jared Michael Delaney), a young actor from Toronto, appears at the door; he is part of a theater collective writing a play about farming and invites himself into the men's lives to learn about rural life and to work in exchange for his keep.

A city kid, Miles' incompetence makes him a dangerous liability, but Morgan is willing to tolerate his presence and makes him the butt of his jokes. He convinces Miles that the cows produce milk because they're terrified of being chosen for slaughter, and when Morgan offers Miles a sandwich of "beef spleen" and Miles says it tastes like ham, Morgan explains that's because they feed the pigs to the cows. The play doesn't push it; it is merely a harmless amusement for Morgan and for us.

What is not harmless is Miles' insensitivity to Angus' disability and the delicacy of the situation he has walked into. His greedy misuse of stories he overhears of their painful past makes him worse than just a meddlesome fool. A character who is an actor is always a play's invitation to self-referential jokes, especially an actor who seems to know nothing about human nature. The role could be funny and charming, but as played by Delaney, Miles is simply an unpleasant slacker, and his unfocused performance compromises what is otherwise a splendid production. Both Kern and Bergwall turn in subtly shaded performances as we watch Angus reconnect with himself, while Morgan's long-suffering stolidity endures.

The Drawer Boy is a quiet and moving play, a solid experience in the theater. Act II Playhouse continues to make interesting and unusual choices of new scripts, and to import significant talent to the area.

Through Feb. 16, Act II Playhouse, 56 E. Butler Pike, Ambler, 215-654-0200