Download A Teacher`s Guide The Drawer Boy

A Teacher’s
Guide
to
The
Drawer Boy
by Michael Healey
Activities by Chip Arnold and Lattie Brown
Guidebook compiled and edited by
Susan Sanders and Lattie Brown, TPAC Education
With additional contributions by
David Alford and Kristin Dare-Horsley
Tennessee Performing Arts Center gratefully acknowledges the
generous support of corporations, foundations, government
agencies and other groups for TPAC Education in 2003-2004.
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The Community Foundation of Middle
Tennessee
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HCA, Inc.
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New England Foundation for the Arts
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The Drawer Boy
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
ABOUT THE PLAY
page 3
Director’s notes
Characters
Plot Synopsis
The Writer Boy
BACKGROUND
page 6
The Farm Show
Theater Classifications
CONNECTIONS AND
ACTIVITIES page 8
Points of Interest
Activities
Discussion Questions
RESOURCES
page 15
Links
Glossary
Copyright August 2003,
Tennessee Performing Arts
Center. All rights reserved. No
part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior
permission of the Tennessee
Performing Arts Center
Education Program, P. O. Box
190660, Nashville, TN 37219.
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
About
the
Play
David Alford
Artists have an innate compulsion to discover Truth: theatre artists in particular.
Whatever its nature may be - factual, emotional, spiritual – the best playwrights,
actors, and directors delve deeply to uncover Truth. It’s that effort that illuminates
the best in what theatre artists do. The effort is often grueling and can be painful.
Stripping away artifice is an unpleasant process.
The search for truth is the central theme of The Drawer Boy, and it’s no accident
that the story’s protagonist is a young thespian. The play takes place on a small
farm in Ontario, Canada, where Miles (the thespian in question) comes to find
material for a large-scale project he and his fellow theatre folks are working on.
Playwright Michael Healey invents the episodes that occur during the actor’s
stay, as Miles gets to know Morgan and Angus, the two farm owners. Angus is
particularly fascinating to Miles. He suffers from a brain injury, and his short-term
memory is practically nonexistent. Morgan is his caretaker, and has created a
fictional story of their past, based on elements of truth, that protects Angus from
some very painful memories. As Miles works on the farm, doing his research, his
artist’s need to discover the truth causes him to probe more deeply into what Angus
believes, and into Morgan’s story. Morgan resists this and keeps Miles at a distance,
but Angus grows to like Miles more and more, particularly after he sees a rehearsal.
Angus is captivated by theatre (a touch I’m particularly fond of.)
The irony of Miles’ character is that as he searches for artistic truth, he never
questions the series of outlandish chores Morgan requires him to do (like cleaning
rocks) or the hysterically bad information Morgan gives him about the work of the
farm. At one point, given a sandwich, Miles asks, “You said this was beef? Tastes
like ham.” and Morgan replies, “That’s because we feed the pigs to the cows.” Miles
accepts the seemingly obvious absurdity of that statement, yet he is relentless about
uncovering what happened to Angus.
If the play has a fault, it’s that the end is a bit tidy. Healey’s lesson that truth is good
regardless of the pain it may cause is oversimplified. Miles never really suffers any
consequences other than a few cuts, scrapes, and bruises from his chores, and most
often it is the truth-seeker than undergoes the worst pain in such a quest. And the
suffering Morgan and Angus endure is short-lived. Everyone agrees in the end that
it was worth it. There is rarely such a clear-cut case in real life. The age-old
metaphor of Pandora’s Box is probably closer to reality.
But in the end, The Drawer Boy is effective because of its compassion. It tells a
compelling story of friendship and deep, personal loyalty that is quite moving. In
doing so, it champions the role of the artist in society. The play is saying that artists,
by the very nature of what they do, make life better. And that’s an idea we should
all get behind.
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About
the
Play
SETTING
A farm in southwestern Ontario
in the summer of 1972
CHARACTERS
Morgan- a bachelor farmer in his fifties
Angus- a bachelor farmer in his fifties
Miles- a young actor in his twenties from Toronto
www.whps.com/agtours/ farmers.jpg
SYNOPSIS
The play begins with a young actor named Miles, who shows up at the doorstep of the farmhouse shared by two aging
bachelors, Angus and Morgan. Miles’ arrival sets in motion a series of events that challenge the quiet and seemingly
uneventful existence of the two farmers.
Personalities and cultures at once set characters apart, with Miles and Morgan defending opposite poles. Miles, an
ambitious, idealistic young artist and a product of the big city, is in search of knowledge, experience and the ultimate story
to bring to the collective theater project in which he is involved. Morgan's age, experience and awareness prompt an urban
and rural culture clash that is the source of much of the play's clever and rich humor. Under Morgan's direction, Miles is
assigned "vital" farm duties: shuffling eggs from nest to nest to help alleviate “hen anxiety” and cleaning-out cow stalls
with a kitchen fork in order to harvest undigested corn. Morgan amuses himself with absurd tricks on the unwitting Miles,
but the silly tasks also serve to keep the young artist's inquisitive nature at bay when he begins to get too close to the
secrets of the past that haunt the elderly farmer.
At the center of the conflict and competition between Miles and Morgan is Angus, an individual left confused and
handicapped after a severe head injury in WWII seemingly wiped away his memory. However, despite his simple, childlike exterior, Angus still retains a miraculous ability with mathematical figures and statistics. Deep within him are buried
memories, experiences and talents he once possessed.
Miles discovers the story he needs to impress his acting peers when he overhears Morgan’s daily explanation to Angus of
the history of their friendship, their adventures in the war and their return to Canada. Morgan's story is a compelling tale
of loyalty, commitment and loss as he recalls their childhood together, the outstanding artistic and creative talent that
Angus possessed, and the two English girls whom they met and fell in love with during the war. Morgan's simple account
of the dreams they pursued and the tragedy that destroyed those dreams is an emotional highlight of this spectacular
drama.
The story strikes a much-needed creative chord within Miles, and he rehearses his version of Morgan's storytelling
episode before his fellow actors, as well as before Angus and Morgan who have been invited to watch. The result is a
surprise and challenge to all. Angus's memory slowly begins to re-awaken as he watches his story unfold on stage.
Naturally, he has questions; however, Morgan is reluctant to provide answers. Angus's demands for more information
result in the re-telling and acting out of the story until the events of the past are finally confronted and the complete truth
surfaces.
adapted from http://www.globetheatrelive.com/20002001season/studyguidethedrawerboy.htm
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About
the
Play
Meet the Writer Boy
Michael Healey first arrived on the Canadian theatre scene as an actor, having left
Toronto’s prestigious Ryerson Theatre School in 1985 with a burning desire to play
Hamlet at Stratford before his 25th birthday. By the early 90s, his interests began to shift
away from acting. He started working on a novel and wrote two chapbooks about the
theatre: Dear Mr. Newton, Sincerely, Michael Healey and An Actor’s Diary. His first play
was a one-act called Kicked, which was produced at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 1996
with Healey as the solo performer.
Prior to that production, Healey spent four months as part of the Blyth
Festival in backwoods Ontario, where he ended up writing a newspaper
column about how strange it felt to be a big-city boy stuck out in the
sticks. It was around this time he got the idea to write a second play,
this one about what happens when society intrudes upon a pair of
isolated farmers whose relationship is built of myth and ritual. The
playwright’s plan to have a meteorite crash into his characters’
farmhouse was soon discarded in favor of having an actor from Toronto
invade their secluded rural lives—a premise drawn from Healey’s own
fish-out-of-water experience and from his burgeoning interest
in The Farm Show.
Healey was certain that local audiences would remember and relate to
The Farm Show, which had been a watershed in modern Canadian
theatre history. But he was also determined to make The Drawer Boy a
play that would stand alone. By downplaying the real people and actual
events that had been his inspiration, he created a compelling—and
wholly original—new story.
Michael Healey
The Drawer Boy opened in February 1999 at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille and went on to win four Dora
Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding New Play, Best Production (Passe Muraille), Best Director (Miles
Potter) and Best Male Performance (David Fox); the Floyd S. Chalmers Award for Best New Play, and a
Governor General’s Literary Award (1999/2000) for Best English Drama. The play had its U. S. debut at
Steppenwolf in 2001 (incidentally, their fifth best-grossing show ever) and went on to be named one of the
year’s Ten Best Plays by Time Magazine. "It was just this hilarious, fantastic, surreal, über-American
experience," Healey recalls. Not bad for the "little play" he never thought would make it out of Toronto.
As much as he loves having control over all the elements when he’s writing, Healey still misses the social
aspects of being an actor and returns to his first love as often as possible. In 1999, he and collaborator Kate
Lynch wrote The Road to Hell, a pair of one-act comedies performed together by the pair at the Tarragon
Theatre, and in 2000, he was nominated for a Dora Award for outstanding performance in Better Living. Rather
than concentrating on elements of theme or plot, he’s much more likely to be thinking about what the actors get
to do next. "I always try to give actors hard, great things to do . . . the things I would want to do onstage."
Healey lives in Toronto with his wife and new baby. His play Plan B was produced in January 2002 at the
Tarragon, where he is currently writer-in-residence and where his newest play, Rune Arlidge, is slated for
production early [this] year.
http://www.scr.org/season/02-03season/studyguides/drawerboy/table.html
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Background
The Farm Show
Theatre Passe Muraille
A pioneering theatre company in Toronto, and the oldest
alternative theatre in English Canada, Theatre Passe Muraille
(literally "theatre beyond walls") was founded in 1968 by Jim
Garrard and Paul Thompson. Although collective creation
was already in wide use throughout the country, Thompson
and his troupe turned the grassroots movement into an artistic
milestone. Within one decade of its founding, Passe Muraille
had produced 22 collective creations, spreading the
philosophy all over Canada and bringing proponents of the
form to Toronto.
In 1972, a group of young actors working with Theatre Passe Muraille
embarked on a project that involved the study of a farming community.
Actors lived with farm families in the community of Clinton, Ontario,
and collected stories from the people they encountered there. These reallife conversations were developed into a famous theatrical production
called The Farm Show, which was first presented in Ray Bird’s barn in
Clinton, before being taken to Toronto and beyond, quickly becoming a
landmark event in Canadian theatre history.
Jack Merrill, the real farmer
whose tranquil life was invaded
by big-city actors
Directed by Paul Thompson, The Farm Show dialogue came directly
from the farmers interviewed by the actors. The play later toured the
cattle markets, beef barns, and community halls of southwestern Ontario.
Eventually, the script was written down on paper by Ted Johns, who
summed up the experience:
Original company of 'The Farm Show,' including Paul
Thompson (left), co-founder of Theatre Passe Muraille;
David Fox (second from left), who created the part of
Angus in 'The Drawer Boy' at Passe Muraille; and Miles
Potter (center), director of that first production and Michael
Healey's inspiration for the character of Miles.
"In the early days of that summer of ’72, the actors had no
idea what they were doing. The dramatic techniques, and the
songs, grew out of the actors' attempts to dramatize their
discoveries in daily improvisational sessions. At first the
result didn’t seem like a play—no lights, no costumes, no set,
a barn for a theatre, hay bales for seats. Following were
those incredible first performances in Clinton, then again in
Toronto, Saskatchewan, in southern Ontario auction barns,
in the palatial art centers of Ottawa, Stratford, and
Manitoba, then Michael Ondaatje’s successful film and a
CBC television special in 1974, several radio versions, and
finally crowds of strangers asking, "How did you do this?"
No one anticipated the delight people would take in hearing
their own language and observing their own culture. . . The
people were discovering themselves."
http://www.scr.org/season/02-03season/studyguides/drawerboy/table.html
Thanks to www.scr.org/.../drawerboy/ images/
6
Background
WHAT kind of theater???
“The idea was to take a group of actors out to a farm community and build a
play of what we could see and learn. There is no “story” or “plot” as such. We
hope that you can see many stories woven into the themes of this play and that
out of it will emerge a picture of a complex and living community.”
–Paul Thompson
Reviewers, audiences, academics, playwrights, and other theater artists do not
completely agree over conclusive terminology, but The Farm Show incorporated
elements of all of the following classifications of theater.
DOCUMENTARY
THEATER - a genre of
theater whereby news events or
real social conditions are
analyzed and presented in a
non-fictional but dramatic form.
In much the same way that a documentary film weaves together fragments of
cinematic evidence to create a non-fiction story, the documentary play locates its
dramatic text in language recorded from real life. Interview and court trial transcripts,
print media articles and broadcast transcripts, recordings of live speeches and public
hearings - all these sources of the contemporary spoken word can be used to create a
script about actual, rather than imaginary, events.
The rough material gathered during an initial research phase is eventually edited and
sculpted by a playwright. Applying dramatic conventions to language that is
unconventional for the stage, the playwright shapes the amorphous footage into a
theatrical form. People who are interviewed during the research phase become
characters in the play. They are represented by actors. The world from which the
documentary language is plucked becomes a set upon a stage. The loose association
of ideas, events and voices are sewn together with a narrative lining so that ultimately
the audience experiences fragments of documentary material as a story, or, at the
very least, as a well-developed exposure of an issue or a social problem.
http://www.porteparole.org/english/doc-theatre.html
ETHNOGRAPHIC
THEATER - theater
that examines a specific
human culture.
[The Drawer Boy portrays] an example of ethnographic theater, "in which artists
enter communities and create works that speak specifically to and about the group
from which they are derived”. . . The ethnographic stories are “given back to the
audience” to produce “an awakening of critical consciousness" among the
participants.
http://www.artscope.net/PAREVIEWS/DrawerBoy0501.html
COLLECTIVE CREATION - several theater
groups across Canada used this term for their projects,
referring to the equal part that many theater artists,
instead of just one writer, contributed in determining the
content of the play. Actors made a direct bridge from
personal experience and observation to performance.
7
What is special about [collective creation] is the
process. In fact, process lies at the heart of collective
creation as a company of actors researches, improvises
and creates a script. Directors and/or playwrights can
be part of this process but their role is generally
peripheral.
http://www.heritage.nf.ca/arts/collectives.html
Farm Issues
Points of
Interest
MORGAN And if it’d gone up like the income tax has, that steak would be
three-eighty a pound.
ANGUS
Fifty-eight point three three three three. Percent
MORGAN And wouldn’t that make people scream blue murder in the grocery store.
We get nothing for what we do. An egg costs nine cents in a store; there’s
practically an armed uprising over how expensive an egg is. Know how much it
costs me to produce that egg? Nine point one three cents. Care to guess what
my profit margin is on that egg?
ANGUS
Negative eighteen point seven-two cents per gross of eggs
MORGAN And if I drop one or two, it gets even worse.
MILES
How can you afford to run a losing business, year in, year out?
MORGAN I make a little on the milk, and that almost evens things out on the eggs. The rest
of the debt I put over to the next year until my crops finally go for what they’re
actually worth. That year, of course, will never come….Public complains about us,
they believe all us farmers are making a killing. Politicians complain about us, tired
of giving us subsidies that just get us to next year---maybe. Kids are leaving the
farms, moving to Toronto; nobody wants to do this anymore. Soon nobody will.
The Drawer Boy, Act I, Scene 5
How’s the small family farm situation in Tennessee?
FEWER FAMILY DAIRIES DOT THE COUNTRYSIDE
The Tennessean, Leon Alligood, Dec. 23, 2003
Tennessee's family farms, numbering fewer than 800, face tough times over prices, land development, big
competition. …
Wilson County dairy farmer Roy Major, whose family milks about 170 head, mostly Holstein, with a few Brown
Swiss, said it has been frustrating to see the plummeting cost of a gallon of milk. ''Last month I figured out we got
$1.78 and in the store it was $3.79. I had all the risk, the cost of land, equipment, taxes, all my production costs. We're
just not getting as much of that as we need to,'' said Major.
Joe Pearson, commodities expert with the Tennessee Farm Bureau, said the farmer's slice has been decreasing for
years. ''It used to be that the farmer received 50 cents of the consumer's dollar, but now they are getting about 30
cents,'' said Pearson, who tracks the performance of milk and other commodities. …
Consequently, ''super dairies'' in the West and Midwest have opened. These large farms, with 50 or more employees,
are milking several thousand head per day, compared with the less than 100-head herd of a typical Tennessee farm.
''My competition is not in Tennessee. It's in places out West and in Indiana and Illinois that have gone to where the
feed supply is plentiful and where the communities want them,'' Major said.
Another factor that will decide the dairy industry's fate in Tennessee is whether there will be a next generation of dairy
farmers. Rogers said only a few of his UT students plan to return to the family farm as a vocation. ''They are more the
exception than the rule.'' Meanwhile, Davis said that neither he nor his brother has children who are interested in
running a dairy farm. ''And I'll be honest, I don't see much of a future in it,'' he said.
http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/03/12/44469958.shtml?Element_ID=44469958
8
Points of
Interest
Farm Issues
MILES
MORGAN
MILES
You said this [sandwich] was beef? Tastes like ham.
That’s because we feed the pigs to the cows.
Really?
The Drawer Boy, Act I, Scene 5
Is Morgan pulling Miles’ leg?
Though the story is set in 1972, Michael Healey
wrote the play in 1997-8.
Did he know that pig meat meal is currently fed to cattle?
MILES
This is going to blow
people’s minds in
rehearsal. You know,
we all just go to the
store, buy some fruit
or a steak, and never
think about where it
comes from.
Ban Urged on All Animal Protein for Cattle
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. and DENISE GRADY
Published: February 5, 2004
Saying mad cow disease is now "indigenous in North America,"
an international panel advising the Agriculture Department
The Drawer Boy, Act I, Scene 5
recommended a ban yesterday on feeding all animal protein to
cattle. It has been illegal since 1997 to feed meal made from
ruminants like cows, sheep, goats and deer to other ruminants. It is legal to feed hogs and chickens.
Partly because it has been so hard to prevent cross-contamination in rendering plants and the trucks
that carry the dried meal, the panel recommended that cattle be given no more animal feed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/national/nationalspecial2/05COW.html?th
Literature Links
Hamlet
Act II opens
with Miles
telling Angus
the plot of
Hamlet in the
first person. The scene is funny
because of Miles’ truncated version
of Shakespeare’s masterpiece and
because Angus is so enthralled with
a story he has never heard before.
Review the main characters and the
basic plot of Hamlet. (You can find
plot summaries and character plots at
http://absoluteshakespeare.com)
ANGUS sits on the back step, listening.
MILES …and I have these two friends. From university. They’re funny.
They talk alike and they sort of dress alike, and they’re always
together. And because I’m sad my stepfather calls them up and
says, “He mopes around wearing black all day; come and visit
and cheer him up.”—and so they do. Except what my stepfather
really wants them to do is spy on me, in case I get it into my head
that I want to kill him.
ANGUS Why would you…?
MILES Because, like I said, he killed my father and married my mum,
and my father told me to. Sort of. His ghost sort of told me to.
ANGUS Right.
MILES Their names are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
ANGUS You’re kidding.
MILES I am not.
ANGUS Hee hee!
The Drawer Boy, Act II, scene 1
Ask students to partner and relay to each other the adventures of a main character in Romeo and Juliet (or
another Shakespeare play they have read in school) in the first person as if they were the character telling
their own personal story.
9
Points of
Interest
Literature Links
Of Mice and Men
Both The Drawer Boy and Of Mice and Men focus
around a strong, central friendship between two men.
One man is the protector, the caretaker of a friend
who cannot cope with the world because of mental
difficulties. In each play, the telling of stories figures
powerfully as a dramatic device. The story that
Morgan tells Angus in The Drawer Boy is about
their past, and the story that George tells Lenny in Of Mice and Men is about their future.
Have students read the excerpts and compare and contrast the characters and the relationships.
What are the differences between the two stories?
Why do both Angus and Lenny cling so tightly to the stories that Morgan and George tell them?
What holds friendships like that together?
Do students have a story that they love to hear re-told over and over?
What is it that draws them to that story?
ANGUS
MORGAN
Tell it.
Naw…Not tonight,
Angus.
ANGUS
Sure, tonight. You never tell it.
MORGAN
I tell it daily, you just
don’t….Alright. Just….listen.
A couple of boys played shinney and went to school
and grew up. One drew pictures of a cabin---fine
pictures of the inside and the outside—until finally
they built the cabin together. Stole nails played
hookey ‘til it was done.
They finished school. One just barely. The other
finished easily, but never got his diploma because he
wouldn’t give back the poetry book. That one almost
went off to school, to keep drawing. The other one
never would of. He was all set to work for his father,
to start in on the farm. And when they both got
called up, both went off to Europe. No school for the
one, no farm for the other. They managed to stick
together. They fired their guns straight up in the air,
and yelled to each other the louder things got. When
it got so loud they couldn’t hear they sang. They had
three boots between them.
In England they met two girls, one tall and one
taller. The taller one liked the drawer, the tall one,
the farmer. They talked; they made plans. The girls
talked together; the boys talked together. The tall girl
and the farmer would talk all night. The taller girl
and the drawer would walk and talk all night. One
girl would talk to the other boy about the boy she
liked; so would the other girl to the other boy about
the first boy.
The Drawer Boy, Act I, Scene 5
LENNY
George, tell me.
GEORGE What?
LENNY
Like you've done before.
GEORGE Like what?
LENNY
About them- about the rabbits. Come on
George, tell me like you've done before! Please- pleaseplease!
GEORGE You get a kick out of them don't you? Okay, I
will. Guys like us, that work on ranches are the loneliest
guys in the world. They've got no family and they don't
belong no place. They've got nothing to look ahead to
LENNY
But not us George! Tell about us now.
GEORGE Well, we ain’t like that. We got a future. We've
got someone to talk to who gives a [ ] about us. Them
other guys get in a jail they can rot for all anyone cares.
LENNY
But not us George. Because I've got you to look
after me and you got -tell us how it’s going to be.
GEORGE Someday, we're going to have us a little house
and a couple of acres, a cow, a pigLENNY
And a pig, chickens, and we're going to live off
the fat of the land and have rabbits - go on, but tell we've
got in the gardenGEORGE Okay.
LENNY
And tell about the rabbits in winter, and about
the stove - and- and- um, uh how the thick cream was on
the milk, like, go ahead, George, tell it!
GEORGE Why don’t you do it yourself? You know all of
it.
LENNY
George, no! George no, its not the same. Its not
even the same when I tell it. It's not the same - tell how
I'm going to tend the rabbits.
Of Mice and Men
10
Points of
Interest
The Poem
The verses recited by Angus in Act II of The Drawer Boy are from a poem entitled "At
the Wedding March," written by British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1879. Because
Angus would not give back the poetry book in which he found this poem, the school
refused to give him a diploma.
GOD with honour hang your head,
Groom, and grace you, bride, your bed
With lissome scions, sweet scions,
Out of hallowed bodies bred.
Each be other’s comfort kind:
Déep, déeper than divined,
Divine charity, dear charity,
Fast you ever, fast bind.
Then let the March tread our ears:
I to him turn with tears
Who to wedlock, his wonder wedlock,
Déals tríumph and immortal years.
Note: "The Wedding March," which is actually incidental music from
Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was first played
as a recessional at the wedding of the English Princess Royal in 1858.
http://www.scr.org/season/02-03season/ studyguides/drawerboy/table.html
Ask students if any poem or story
in literature has touched them deeply.
When did they first hear it and
why did it affect them so?
Read other Hopkins poems.
“Peace”
“Inversnaid”
“Pied Beauty”
“Felix Randal”
“Spring and Fall”
“The Sea and the Skylark”
“The Leaden Echo and the
Golden Echo”
Look for examples of assonance,
alliteration, internal rhyme, and
onomatopoeia.
Type in his name at
http://www.bartleby.com/vers/
Gerard Manley Hopkins
1844–89, English poet, educated at Oxford. Entering the Roman Catholic Church in 1866 and the Jesuit
novitiate in 1868, he was ordained in 1877. Upon becoming a Jesuit he burned much of his early verse and
abandoned the writing of poetry. However, the sinking in 1875 of a German ship carrying five Franciscan
nuns, exiles from Germany, inspired him to write one of his most impressive poems “The Wreck of the
Deutschland.” Thereafter he produced his best poetry, including “God’s Grandeur,” “The Windhover,” “The
Leaden Echo and The Golden Echo.” Since Hopkins never gave permission for the publication of his verse, his
Poems, edited by his friend Robert Bridges, did not appear in print until 1918. His life was continually
troubled by inner conflict, which arose, not from religious skepticism, but from an inability to give himself
completely to his God. Both his poems and his letters often reflect an intense dissatisfaction with himself as a
poet and as a servant of God. Though he produced a small body of work, he ranks high among English poets,
and his work profoundly influenced 20th-century poetry. His verse is noted for its piercing intensity of
language and its experiments in prosody. Of these experiments the most famous is “sprung rhythm,” a meter in
which Hopkins tried to approximate the rhythm of everyday speech.
Columbia Encyclopedia Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2002 Columbia University Press http://www.bartleby.com/65/ho/HopkinsG.html
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Activities
#1 Finding the story
Research of one kind or another plays a part in
every artist’s work. The beginning process of
documentary theater actually comes close to
investigative journalism. As they conduct
research and interviews, ask students to watch for
information with dramatic or humorous potential.
a) Research
The desire to understand another group of people as well as a healthy
curiosity drove the actors and directors of The Farm Show. Theater
of all kinds seeks to walk in someone else’s shoes and see through
their eyes.
Have students brainstorm a list of unusual people and/or communities
to which they don’t usually have access but would like to learn about.
Examples might be: a nuclear plant, migrant farmers, the zoo, fighter
pilots, etc.
What is intriguing about them? Sometimes the pull is not easy to
identify with words. Each student should pick one segment of the
population that captivates him or her. Allow students interested in the
same group to work together. Have students research these unusual
people or communities on the Internet.
Assign students to write a paragraph detailing differences and
similarities between their own lifestyle and way of thinking and that
of their subjects. Did they learn anything about this group of people
that surprised them?
b) Interviews
A direct way for students to discover
a new culture exists at home. Ask
students to interview their parents or
relatives, and find out a group that
these adults were a part of when they
were younger. Include sub-cultures
fostered by sports teams or other
special interest groups. Students can
combine a personal interview and
firsthand account with additional
research if they wish.
Make sure that students ask for
funny stories as well as moving
ones. Ask the students to report any
difficulties they had, even with their
own parents, getting specific details.
#2 Creating a play
Once research and interviews are complete,
students will have some raw material with which
to create a play. They can use the information and
insights they have gained to tell a dramatic story
that reveals a group of people. (This activity can
also be done using information in a newspaper or
magazine article about a group of people.)
Divide students into teams of four or five.
They must quickly decide upon which group to
build their play if teams are different from
those in Activity #1.
Afterwards, have students share with the class a synopsis or perform excerpts from their plays.
Ask them what the process of collective writing was like. If members of
their chosen group of people saw the play, what do students suppose they would think and feel?
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Activities
#2
Creating a play-feel free to take artistic license!
Choosing the Main Characters
Who will be the main characters?
Do you need to invent some characters representative of your community group?
Who else do you need to tell the story? (At one point in The Drawer Boy, it looks as
though Miles will make the cow one of the characters!)
What kind of relationships exist between the characters?
Which character will the audience really connect with?
Will any students appear in the play as interviewers or narrators?
Building the Plot
Can you relate a specific event that actually happened, or do you need to make one up?
Where will the play be set?
What problems or struggles do your characters encounter?
What do they do to solve or overcome them?
Adding Dialogue
Improvise conversations between characters.
Can you use any actual quotes by real members of the group?
Look back at your notes. Is there any vital information about the group that a character
needs to share?
Evaluating and Revising
Act out your scenes. Try to understand the mindset, feelings and physicality of the
characters as an actor would. This process will help you to construct a better play.
What adjustments in plot, characters and dialogue do you need to make?
#3 Searching for Truth
The Drawer Boy is a traditional play in that it is written by
one playwright. Although Michael Healey uses real events
and people to inspire his story, it is an entirely fictional
one. He is obviously fascinated with the impact of
documentary theater, yet he chooses to use its ideas in his
plot rather than its technique in his own work.
Why? What else might be important to him to convey?
What truth did he want to explore?
What kind of truth interests students? Can they categorize it, name it?
What is important enough to them to write a play about?
Ask them to describe in one sentence an issue, situation, or other
point about which they want to learn the truth and why.
Next, ask students to imagine and write a paragraph about what kind of play comedy, drama, fictional, documentary or other - might best bring an audience
into this exploration of truth.
Do students think that theater can have a significant effect on audiences?
Why or why not?
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What kind of
truth?
social~
emotional~
personal~
historical~
cultural~political~
familial~racial~
relationship?
Activities Examples-Great plays finding and expressing truth
The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman and the Members of Tectonic Theatre Project
Moisés Kaufman comments: "The brutal killing of openly gay student Matthew Shepard made national
news in 1998, and became a touch point for the nation to discuss their feelings on homosexuality,
sexual politics, education, class, violence, privileges and rights, and the difference between tolerance
and acceptance. I challenged the members of Tectonic Theater Project to ask: what can we as theatre
artists do as a response to this incident? And more concretely, is theatre a medium that can contribute
to the national dialogue on current events?"
According to Des McAnuff, the La Jolla Playhouse’s Artistic Director, "The Laramie Project not only
provides insight about the tragic death of Matthew Shepard, but tackles how a community deals with
tragedy head-on. Tectonic Theater Project interviewed a wide variety of people in the community: gay
and straight, young and old, close to and far from Matthew Shepard. The resulting work navigates the
audience through the aftermath of a tragedy from numerous viewpoints, allowing the audience to draw
its own conclusions from the townspeople of Laramie."
http://www.lajollaplayhouse.com/news/larrel.htm
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is both social and racial drama, calling particular
attention to the strained race relations before the civil rights movement. The power of her characters
and the pathos of their situation made a huge impact on the America of the 1950’s including giving
African-American people a then rare chance to witness their own experience on stage.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is an excellent example of politically motivated theater. Miller
chose the Salem witch trials of the 1600’s to illuminate the parallels between the panicked paranoia of
that time and the deeply disturbing accusations of the McCarthy era communism commissions.
Comedies search for truth in a whole different manner. The Drawer Boy is filled with funny moments, characters, and
relationships. Finding the humor in a situation can bring the truth out more powerfully than the most serious drama. It
can also make the truth less painful and more appealing.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, depending on point of view, can be seen as a comedy of
manners, ironic and witty in its comments on human foibles or as a biting satire that reveals disturbing social truth.
The Farm Show and other documentary theater efforts in Canada during the late 1960’s and
1970’s were spurred by the desire of artists to understand and tell the stories of communities
that were in crisis or at the center of important Canadian issues. Do you think this helped the
Canadian people? Why?
What would happen if an actor came into your school wanting to know what high school in
2004 was really like? Would you be open to the actor’s questions? What kind of strategies
would the actor have to use to get the real story? What would they have to do to get you and
your friends to trust them? Would you play jokes on the actor as Morgan does to Miles?
Discussion
questions
In The Drawer Boy, Morgan eventually reveals a secret lie he has kept from Angus for thirty
years. He has been lying to hide it. What causes people to keep secrets? Is it ever all right to
lie to someone?
At what point does the truth become too much to bear? How much pain would you be willing
to endure to have it? Are there some things you would rather not know? Is ignorance bliss?
Mr. Healey holds that truth is worth it. Do you agree? A great example is the point in the
movie, The Matrix, where Neo is offered two pills. If he takes one, he’ll wake up and continue
being blissfully ignorant, unaware of anything that’s happened. If he takes the other all the
truth in its horrifying totality will be revealed… and he will never be able to return to his
former state. Which is better?
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Resources
Glossary
Key words
Freshie – the Canadian equivalent of kool-aid. {Angus always offers it
Miles.}
Mow (rhymes with "cow") – a stack of hay or other feed stored in a barn;
also the place in a barn where hay, grain or other feed is stored.
Prince’s Patricians ("Pats") – the World War II military unit from south
central Ontario. {Morgan and Angus joined this army unit.}
Shinney – ice, street or field hockey played informally with a ball, can or similar object.
{Angus and Morgan played this game together as boys.}
Additional references:
Donnellys – Canada’s most notorious family, five members of whom were brutally massacred in 1880 by a
vigilante committee near London, Ontario. {Miles was in a play about them.}
Ensilage – the process of preserving fodder (such as cornstalks, rye, oats, millet, etc.) by compressing it while
green and fresh in a pit or vat called a silo, where it is kept covered from the air. {This is the type of fork
Morgan says he is giving Miles to clean the cow barn; it is a kitchen fork.}
Rochdale College (rhymes with "rosh-dale") – the center of radical left-wing activity on the campus of the
University of Toronto in the 60s and 70s. The company that developed The Farm Show was based at Rochdale
College before they got their own building and became the Theatre Passe Muraille. {Miles went to school at
Rochdale College.}
Real names from The Farm Show included by Michael Healey in The Drawer Boy:
Ray Bird-the farmer who allowed the first show in his barn in both plays.
Don and Alison Lobb-Morgan and Angus’ neighbors and viewers of The Farm Show
who reminisced with Michael Healey.
Miles- from Miles Potter, the original Miles in The Farm Show and the director of the premier of
The Drawer Boy.
(from http:// www.scr.org/season/02-03season/studyguides/drawerboy/table.html)
Links
Read reviews of The Drawer Boy
http://www.stthomasu.ca/~hunt/reviews/drawer.htm
http://www.artscope.net/PAREVIEWS/DrawerBoy0501.shtml
Find a working Family farm near you
The Tennessee Century Farms Program identifies, documents, and recognizes farms owned by the same family
for at least 100 years. To date, nearly 900 farms representing every county have been certified. The CHP
maintains the Century Farm database of information and photographs, most of which is based on applications
supplied by the farm families. Tennessee Agriculture: A Century Farms Perspective was published by the
Tennessee Department of Agriculture and the Center in 1986.
http://histpres.mtsu.edu/histpres/initiatives/centuryfarms.html
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Tennessee Performing Arts Center
P.O. Box 190660
Nashville, Tennessee 37219
www.tpac.org
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