I’m sure anyone who has seen “The Drawer Boy” probably went for the Theater Appreciation class taught by Prof. Des Gallant. I hope they paid attention — there was a test on it. To break out of school mode, I hope the students who saw it noted something else: The Drawer Boy has a great plot. A struggling actor comes to a farm to observe farmers for a role he is writing in a play. While at the farm he discovers secrets of the two men who live there. The actor uses their life stories and develops it into his part of the play, only to delve deeper into the lives and friendship of these two men.

The character Miles is played by Terrell Hardcastle. Hardcastle is the weakest actor in the show. It could have been the material he was given, but the blame lies mainly in his acting. With his 70’s leisure suit to date the play, he overacts whenever he is on stage. Even while doing the most mundane of tasks he seems to be trying to steal the show, to no avail. The overacting is most prevalent in the beginning and begins to die down by the end of the play. This could be due to the focus not being on him and the audience’s full attention being on the two friends, Angus and Morgan, played by Colin McPhillamy and Gordon McConnell respectively.

The bulk of the play’s plot is focused on these two men, who pull it off quite nicely. When first watching McPhillamy’s performance you think he is overacting, but upon discovering his character’s mental affliction, it is just heart wrenching. The best scene is when Angus is telling Morgan and Miles to recite the stories and just watching McPhillamy’s body language makes the whole play. McConnell plays his role with subtlety to get his character’s pain across. In scenes when most actors would pull out all the stops and go over the top on emotion he keeps himself subtle and low-key. Still, both actors are nothing phenomenal, but worked well with an already excellent plot.

The plot is what really keeps the play afloat, though. It has a strong story and well developed characters. The acting could have been downright awful, but the play would most likely have stayed alive due to its emotional story and flow. Though the beginning drags, the rest of the play is quick paced, but not forced. All and all I hope I passed the test for Des.

“The Drawer Boy,” written by Michael Healey, is showing until March 7 at Florida Stage.

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