"Drawer Boy" milks laughs from farm life
By Julie Jensen, ARGUS/DISPATCH--March 4, 2005

New Ground Theatre presents ``The Drawer Boy'' at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and March 10-12 and at 2 p.m. Sunday and March 13 at Becherer Hall on the campus of Rivermont Collegiate, 1821 Sunset Drive, Bettendorf. Tickets are $12, $10 for students and seniors 55 and over. (563) 326-7529.

Considering the title of New Ground Theatre's current production, ``The Drawer Boy,'' what do you make of it? I wasn't sure if the lad popped out of a drawer, drew buckets of water from a well, or drew pictures.

At any rate, you'll find out it's one of the above when you see this two-acter with many separate scenes that take place in or around a Canadian farm kitchen circa 1972.

Originally, Mark Hurty was to be the director, but his business schedule collided with the rehearsals, and Chris Jansen, New Ground's artistic director, took over.

``I loved the play,'' she said. ``I couldn't put it down once I started reading it.''

The all-male cast consists of James Driscoll, a New Englander transplanted to the Quad-Cities, plays Angus; Pat Flaherty, a veteran actor frequently seen in New Ground productions, plays Morgan; and Jeff De Leon, an Augustana graduate whose forte is improv and comedy, has the role of Miles.

Miles offers to help Angus and Morgan with chores on their farm in return for anecdotes about farming for a play he is writing about rural life. He knows so little about machinery or farming equipment that he's almost a menace to them, and he's continually injuring either himself or them as he tries to help. He doesn't know the difference between hay and straw.

Angus wears bib overalls and is cheery, but he can't remember anything for five seconds.

Morgan is brusque and has a somewhat sadistic sense of humor. To see the scene where he gives Miles a tiny implement which he calls a ``short-handled ensilage fork'' and tells him to muck out the cattle barn with it, check out the short video clip at www.newgroundtheatre.org.

The secret that Miles unearths goes back 30 years to World War II, when Angus and Morgan were soldiers stationed in England. They did everything together then, and planned to go on doing so the rest of their lives -— but not the way things turned out.

Miles asks, ``Do the cows mind being milked? How do they feel about being interfered with twice a day?'' He goes to the barn and communes with them, then tries to reproduce and interpret their mooing.

A picture of Holsteins on the program is captioned, ``Do these cows look tense to you?''

At night Angus goes outside and lies on his back, counting 19,349 stars, and he’s a whiz at mathematics.

Morgan and Angus subsist on sandwiches to the point where the program includes special thanks to Great Harvest Bread for providing a lot of its product.

There is a female presence in the play —- two tall English girls who once planned to marry these farmer bachelors in a double wedding.

The playwright, Michael Healey, is also an actor. His first play, “Kicked,'' was well-received in Canada. ``The Drawer Boy'' is his second play, and premiered in Toronto in 1999.

The set for the New Ground production was designed by Susan Holgersson, the lighting designer is Michael McPeters, and Susan McDonald created the sound design.

New Ground has added a new feature: desserts for sale at intermission.

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