The Drawer Boy
The meaning of the word changes with its context but always implies the power to command attention and belief. It’s a rare quality that’s no less rare in actors. Morgan Freeman has it: as soon as he appears on-screen we know everything’s going to be all right, or at least addressed by a man whose integrity is a given. John Mahoney has it too. He walks onstage and we’re immediately in the presence of someone real, someone whose humanity, however complex or duplicitous, can’t be doubted.
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The plot is slightly contrived. Two bachelors live together undisturbed on a farm in 1970s Canada until Miles, a young actor-playwright, arrives on their doorstep asking to move in and observe them for the play he wants to write. (That would be the “play written about playwrights” variation on the standard stranger-comes-to-town story. I know there are only seven plots in the world, but it’s not necessary to tattoo the number on the play’s forehead.) The audience learns along with the young Miles (Johnny Galecki) that Angus (Frank Galati) lost his memory in an accident in World War II: he can recall some of the past but can’t remember from minute to minute what he’s heard or done or who he’s met. He’s cared for by Morgan (Mahoney), who manages the farm, assigns Angus simple tasks, and distracts him when he gets upset. (An amnesiac is also at the center of the new film Memento. Refracting life through the eyes of those who’ve lost their memories must say something troubling about contemporary society, but as Edward Albee so sagely remarked, I’m not drunk enough to figure out what it is.)
The central question in The Drawer Boy is who gets to decide what happened, and what will happen. The answer is almost tautological: the storyteller. The person who says how things are, or were, is the one in control of how they will be. At the end of the first act, as Angus regains his memory, Morgan’s rejoicing is muted. He wants the best for his friend, but he recognizes and regrets his own loss of authority. Mahoney’s face conveys this so clearly that the words of another 70s song leaped to mind: “Something’s lost, but something’s gained in living every day.” (The play may begin and end with Neil Young, but Joni Mitchell gets her say too.)
