Drawer Boy – the Tron

Farms are interesting places.    On the face of it, we farmers all do a similar job to one another, and fields of sheep or wheat look much the same to the onlooker.    But look closer, and every farmer has their own way of doing things – customs and atttitudes which are often passed down the generations.    There are tidy farms and scruffy farms;   there are farms with gleaming new machinery and farms making do with older kit.    Farmers are rulers of their own small worlds – the family and others who may be  living on the farm and staff they employ.      The isolation of farming only adds to the impenetrability and misunderstanding from outsiders.

The vast majority of farmers get along with eachother as they are in the same business, and often work with one another helping out.    They meet at the market to catch up on news and chat.    Sometimes things do go wrong, and the effects can be felt for generations.   I have worked on a farm where one brother ran the livestock and the other brother ran the cereals – both had their own separate staff and separate machinery ……….. and the brothers talked to eachother as little as possible.    It was genuinely difficult.    I also know another farm where the son in his 50s was not entrusted to write a cheque, as his father in his 70s wanted to retain financial control.    And another farm where a son was bullied by his father way into adulthood and who eventually took his own life.      Fortunately though, most farms are happy but hard working places.

When we look at human relationships, we always say that one never knows what goes on behind the bedroom door.    For farming, the equivalent is what goes on behind the farm gate.

And this is where Drawer Boy starts.    Michael Healey has based this three hander play on a theatrical exercise in Canada in the 1970s, where urban drama students visited farms and returned to college and used their material to produce “The Farming Show”.    In Drawer Boy, Miles , a theatre student played by Brian Ferguson is visiting a farm in Ontario to get some first hand experience to take back to his college to produce a piece on what living on farms is all about.     So we are on a very isolated farm, run by friends Angus and Morgan where things are done just so.    Angus, played outstandingly by Brian Pettifer, is clearly very simple, and Morgan (Benny Young) is obviously in charge of all the day-to-day work, as well as caring for Angus.    Like quite a few farms, it is a strange, yet stable working and living relationship.     Miles’ presence slowly builds up trust between he and the two men and gradually the background to the odd living arrangements is revealed.    Angus starts to remember the past more clearly.     And we get to hear the story – the one about the tall girl and the taller girl.

For the most part, this is a gentle comedy, with much amusement as Miles, a rural ignorant, learns about farm life with much leg-pulling.    But when the real story is revealed about why the two friends find themselves running an isolated farm, it is a completely shattering and moving revelation.     It is powerful stuff, and the three top rate actors work brilliantly together against Hazel Blue’s attractive big sky and plain farmhouse kitchen set.

Drawer Boy was first performed in Toronto in 1999, and has won many awards, been translated into several languages and toured the world.    It is new to Scotland and is incoming Tron director, Andy Arnold’s choice of first play to do.    He says that he wants to see modern challenging drama in Glasgow, and this is an auspicious start.

Drawer Boy is a strange story which takes us on a journey.    It is haunting and beautiful.     For me, this is definitely going to be a contender for best theatre of 2008.

Here is a trailer