January 8, 2016
Jonathan Woods
"Miles"
The Drawer Boy

As far as Theatre Geeks go, I’m a big one. Huge. Giant. Theatre is to me what Hogwarts is to Harry Potter (I am also a nerd, but that’s another blog for another time …). I majored in Theatre in college; I ate it, slept it and breathed it. It was common knowledge that Jonathan wasn’t free on a Friday night because he had rehearsal. 

So why do I love Theatre so much? I think, at the core of it all, I love the transforming power of Theatre. There’s something very special about an art that not only entertains but educates, makes you question, makes you think. The power of telling a story, watching it unfold and making an emotional connection with your audience is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s like extreme sports for geeks and I’m hooked.

That’s probably why I found myself so intrigued with the script for The Drawer Boy, the latest production from Market House and one that I have the pleasure of being involved with. . I wasn’t even planning on auditioning but a friend of mine (Diane Byrd, who was directing me in my very first MHT production, Dangerous Obsession) loaned me a copy. I read it in a single sitting and after I finished, I immediately flipped back to the beginning and re-read it just to make sure that I had actually read what I thought I had just read. In short, it was one of the best plays I’d ever cracked open. I think I read it another ten or eleven times before auditioning. 

I play the role of Miles, a young actor who finds himself right in the middle of a lifelong friendship between two farmers in the summer of 1972. In Canada, no less. (The play itself is Canadian and written by Michael Healy, also Canadian … are you beginning to see a trend here? I find it thrilling. The Canadians gave us Bryan Adams, Celine Dion and this amazing play. It almost makes up for them giving us Justin Bieber …) Miles is there to learn about farming so that he and his actor friends can put on a play about farmers called “The Farm Show”. In the process, he also learns a personal story between the two farmers, Angus and Morgan, about two young friends who go off to war together and come back changed, albeit in different ways. One of the boys, who drew pictures when they were younger, comes back with a head injury and a very bad memory. The surprise isn’t that the boys in the story are Angus and Morgan. Miles (and the audience) finds that out early on. The real surprise comes when Miles begins to re-enact the stories that he’s been told and that he’s overheard, only to find that Angus and his memory react in a bizarre way to the story he sees … mainly that it jogs his memory. And the stories that Miles has been fed aren’t as fact based as he’s been led to believe. 

It sounds like a drama. It is. It’s also funny, moving, suspenseful and even a little brave. It’s a small story told on an epic scale, one that thrives on characters and the interactions between them. And that’s one other reason that I love Theatre – character. And The Drawer Boy has that in spades.

One bit of trivia before I go … “The Farm Show” is real, as is Miles. Google it. Groovy stuff. 

See you at the Theatre.

- Jonathan

(Upper right photo: Angus, played by Chuck Wilkins, struggles with a painful memory, as Miles, played by Jonathan Woods, looks on. Lower right photo: Miles (Jonathan Woods) watches as Angus (Chuck Wilkins) and Morgan (Tom Dolan) discuss his presence on the farm.)