The Masque digs deep for The Drawer Boy

By Joe Pelone
Collegian Editor
February 7, 2007

Dean Joseph J. Cicala is in a play. There’s more to it than that, obviously. There’s the title, The Drawer Boy, for one. The two-act play is about two World War II veterans and their attempts to move on post-war. All of the proceeds from the performances will go towards charities, split down the middle for the Affirmation Initiative, described by Cicala as “designed to bring significant activities and events to our community that promote the values we share, as reflected in The Affirmation,” and The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, whose name is self-explanatory.

Angus (Sharp, center) struggles with painful memories in The Drawer Boy - Courtesy of Pam Woodward

But ultimately, remember this: Cicala will be in a play this Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m., and again on Sunday at 2 p.m. Furthermore, that is kind of cool.

It’s rare to see La Salle faculty members outside of their authority roles. Sure, spotting a professor at one of Shampoo’s “Nocturne Wednesdays” can be thrilling, but what Cicala, along with long-time friend, fellow Masque member and educator D. Stephen Sharp, and current members of Masque, are doing is far greater, and a bit less creepy. They’re creating art, and hopefully compelling art.

Set in the ’70s, The Drawer Boy focuses on two war veterans, Morgan (Cicala) and Angus (Sharp), who are fighting to move on from past traumas. At some point during the war, Angus was badly injured, mentally devastating him in the process. But just as Cicala and Sharp are old friends in real life, so too are Morgan and Angus. Morgan takes care of Angus as best he can.

La Salle Communication senior and Masque member Chris McBride sums up the story: “Morgan takes care of Angus from the war on, and they have this little homeostasis happening. They have this balance, where Angus remembers Morgan, because of how long he’s known him, and he can be taught things and be reminded of things. Every once in a while he’ll get upset and Morgan will tell him a nice little story.

“Miles [McBride] comes in. He’s a hippie in his own right,” McBride said. “Very ‘art for art’s sake.’ He comes in and he thinks he’s going to be like a caretaker. He ends up ruining Angus, trying to force him to remember things, and forces Angus and Morgan to realize that nothing will ever be the same again.”

The work that went into bringing The Drawer Boy to La Salle was almost as intense as the play itself. Its origins actually lay with another play, Shakespeare Abridged, which The Masque performed last spring. Part of Shakespeare Abridged requires audience participation, with a designated seat in the audience used every performance. When Cicala attended a presentation, the Masque knew right away to seat him in the “hot seat.”

“We pulled him up on stage, and being on stage put this acting bug in him that he hadn’t had in, oh, 25 years,” McBride says.

“My last appearance in a fully staged play was in 1980, the year after my graduation from La Salle and the year in which I became a student affairs professional. Graduate study, and then professional and personal considerations simply drew my attention in other directions,” Cicala said.

“After [Shakespeare Abridged], he said to me in passing, ‘Oh, we should do a show,’ and I always took it as a joke,” McBride said. “Then, in the middle of last summer, he said to me, ‘You know, did you ever think of actually doing a show?’ Then it was just a process of choosing the show, choosing the director. And so, this really all came about because he got that acting bug again. It was [Cicala] basically saying ‘We should make this happen.’”

Once Cicala and McBride decided to pursue performing together, the idea for making the shows into charity events kicked right in.

“The moment I knew [Cicala] was serious I wanted to do a charity. It was Cicala’s idea for the Affirmation Initiative, half of the money is going to that. I got to choose my charity, and I chose The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation,” McBride said. “It’s really close to my heart; my sister is a diabetic. Not to bring down the field, but it’ll probably shorten her life by like 20 years. But, she’s only 20 now, so I don’t have to worry about that for another 40.”

As for The Affirmation Initiative, the organization is already underway promoting Lasallian values, such as a strong sense of community. It “will be one of the sponsors for this spring’s ‘Citizenship Series,’ for example, during which we’re working to bring many, hopefully all, of the Philadelphia mayoral candidates to campus prior to the May primary election,” Cicala said.

But while their hearts were in the right place, choosing a specific play to perform proved to be a lengthy process. The Odd Couple was a lead candidate for a while.

“We read plays over the summer and decided upon The Drawer Boy, which was brought to our attention by Tom Reing, who has directed numerous Masque productions over the past nine years and who already had agreed to direct our project,” Cicala said.

“I really liked it,” McBride said. “While a comedy would get a bigger audience and a bigger draw, because comedies always get bigger draws than dramas, I felt like we should risk it because The Drawer Boy is not like a normal drama, where it’s conflict after conflict. This is more ‘What are we gonna do now? Where does this go from here?’ The gentleness of it just really caught me.”

After The Drawer Boy was chosen, Cicala knew who to ask to perform alongside McBride and himself.

“Once I read the play, it was clear to me that the character of Angus could be well played by my friend of 30 years, Steve Sharp,” he said. “We met and became friends during the Masque’s 1977 production of Mister Roberts. Steve also is an educator and has kept active in theater, as well, having served for a number of years as director at Holy Cross High School in Delran, N.J., where he teaches religion.”

If Sharp’s students are any indication, he should prove to be just as essential to The Drawer Boy as all of the other Lasallians involved. Sophomore chemisty major Pam Woodward, who is serving as the assistant director on this production, was one of Sharp’s students at Holy Cross.

The Drawer Boy doesn’t just mark Cicala’s return to theater, though. It is also, within McBride’s four years at La Salle at least, the first time the Masque has done a production completely for charity.

“We’ve never done ‘direct to charity,’ where all our ticket sales go right to charity,” he said. We have done things in the past, like when we did You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown two years ago in April, we sat jars outside the theater and collected money for Camp Dreamcatcher, which is a camp for AIDS outreach. Every now and then we’ll have a burst of philanthropy, where we find a charity and we put buckets out during the show. But this is the first time in my four years I’ve ever dealt with something that’s purely for charity,”

Producing art in any format is one heck of a sticky wicket. The volume of work heaped on, say, a show’s cast and crew could break many a soul. But McBride, revealing the love he holds for his sister, handles the stress well: “What drives me along is that at the end of this, The Juvenile Diabetic Research Foundation is going to get something out of it.”

The Drawer Boy will be performed at 8 p.m. in the Dan Rodden Theatre Feb. 8, 9 and 10, and at 2 p.m. Feb. 11. Students are asked to donate $5 and faculty $15. General admission is preferred as $20.

pelonej1@lasalle.edu