By David E. Freeman. Directed by Brian Cochrane. Produced by Reelwheels Theatre. At the Cultch’s Historic Theatre on Sunday, December 4. Continues until December 10

In David E. Freeman’s Creeps, four men take refuge in the grimy bathroom of their “sheltered workshop”, where they smoke, razz each other, and shoot the shit while disobeying their supervisors. It’s 1971, and the men’s disabilities have brought them to the workshop, operated by service clubs like Kiwanis and the Rotary Club. They earn a pittance while doing the busywork of folding boxes, weaving rugs, and sorting screws.

Sam (Brett Harris) is the ribald, fast-talking Brit who berates Jim (Adam Grant Warren) for kissing up to the bosses for a promotion to the workshop office. Tom (Aaron Roderick) is the moral centre of the group, an aspiring painter who dreams of leaving their drudgery behind. Roderick provides the strongest of the performances, unspooling onto the floor as his frustrations overwhelm him.

The bull session lasts all 75 minutes of the play’s length, despite the increasing protestations of their bosses. Today it might be #OccupyRestroom, but in 1971 it amounts to a sit-in. The men want more from life—sex, money, opportunities—but Tom is the only one brave enough to really pursue his dreams. Pete (Paul Beckett) cautions him not to overreach because “there’s no place in the outside world for a guy that talks funny.”

Lauchlin Johnston’s set is convincing, if uninspiring, in its 1970s grottiness. Its naturalism combined with its head-on orientation means that the playing space is much tighter than the Cultch’s stage actually affords. Counterintuitively, we often find on-stage tension in big spaces between performers. I didn’t see the virtue in the cramped staging, and it seemed to limit director Brian Cochrane’s options.

Creeps premiered at Factory Theatre in 1971. In his review of the show, the Toronto Star’s Nathan Cohen pointed out that “Freeman is a novice playwright, and it shows.” It still shows, 45 years later. It’s a bold rookie effort, and at its best it feels like George F. Walker’s early work. However, the script’s technical failings—its lack of subtext, clunky transitions, and pacing problems—hold this production back from truly singing.

Though much of the play’s language, with its talk of “queers”, “cripples”, and “spastics”, is behind us, its themes are not. Sheltered workshops still exist and are no less controversial. Today, thousands of Canadians with intellectual disabilities earn tiny sums for building wooden crates (50 cents an hour) or assembling Remembrance Day poppies (a penny per poppy).

Late in the play, Tom says of the workshops, “Think of all the jerks on the outside who don’t have the faintest idea what it’s like.” I was one of those jerks and, despite this production’s flaws, I’m grateful for the lesson.