Farmers and actors collide on ‘Drawer Boy’ stage

Young versus old, rural versus urban, farm life versus ... theater life?

The story of the city misfit figuring out farm life is retold with a new twist that explores the power of storytelling in Cardinal Stage Company’s production of “The Drawer Boy.”

The play opens Friday and runs through March 7, with performances Thursday through Sunday at the John Waldron Arts Center. Performances are at 7:30 p.m., along with 2 p.m. shows each Saturday and Sunday. It is part of ArtsWeek 2010.

In the show, characters Morgan and Angus, played by Ken Farrell and Dave Cole, have lived on a farm since their return from World War II, where Angus sustained an injury that has given him serious memory problems. Morgan takes care of Angus until a big-city actor, Miles, played by IU alumnus Harry Watermeier, shows up on the farm seeking material for a play about rural life. Miles’s intrusion threatens to dig deeper than Morgan wants when he discovers what parts of his life are being exposed in Miles’s play.

“Because Miles is unfamiliar with farming and this kind of life, the show is, in a way, this fish-out-of-water comedy at first glance, but it’s really a character study of Morgan and Angus,” Watermeier said. “I hope the play is, for an audience member, difficult to categorize. They won’t leave saying ‘that was a great comedy’ or ‘that was a great drama.’ It’s just a great story.”

The Canadian play was inspired by a true story of a collision between actors and farmers in Ontario and the play the actors created about the farmers’ lives. Since its first production in 1999, “The Drawer Boy” has become the fourth most-produced play in the past decade.

“We wanted to do a piece that spoke to a different community that is normally represented on stage,” director Randy White said. “So this is a rural farm community, and the clash of that rural and urban environment I think is something that we really experience here in Bloomington.”

White said he also thinks the play is applicable to the experiences of students as well.

“Watching this young person figure out how he can succeed, how he can move forward, this is like his first steps in the world and he’s screwing up terribly,” White said. “He’s naïve and earnest and well-meaning, but he literally steps in all kinds of things on the farm, all the time.”