This was my first time.

Of course, I knew a little about The Drawer Boy (1999) and its history as a modern classic, but I had never seen it actually staged.

It's based on the true story of Theatre Passe Muraille's The Farm Show (1972) which is about a group of actors who lived on a farm in Clinton, Ontario, and then wrote a play about it.

While the two farmers and their stories are the focus and sum of this very humanistic play, we hasten to note that Miles, as played by Frank Cox-O'Connell, is no mere foil. Miles was portrayed as sensitive and inherently sensible. At the same time, a bulky physicality and a lilting speech pattern defined Randy Hughson's character, Angus, and Morgan was appropriately played by John Jarvis as a lean and watchful man.

The Drawer Boy is humorous and thoughtful — and a good example of real life turned into fiction — fiction that changes how people think about each other.

And I enjoyed the play's sense of symmetry.

At play's end, Miles has just left for Toronto, and Morgan rushes into the kitchen and announces to Angus that before leaving, the actor Miles — city boy — actually milked all the cows!