KPBS Airdate: October 28, 1998
When first we behold poor, brain-damaged Buddy
Layman, his eyes are rolled back in his head, and he’s stumbling around the
stage with a forked stick, divining water. He has a mysterious connection to
water and yet he’s terrified of it. Water runs all through “The Diviners,”
sometimes still, sometimes a trickle, and sometimes a torrent.
Playwright James
Leonard, Jr. has woven faith, small-town relationships, and love of the land
into a wonderful tale, set during the Great Depression in the tiny hamlet of
Zion, Indiana. Work is scarce, times
are tough, and the town has been without a spiritual leader for years. In walks a disenchanted preacher, C. C.
Showers, seeking work and a place to stay. Young Buddy intrigues and mystifies
him, and they become fast friends. Buddy’s miraculous ability to divine water
and predict rain comes from an early aqueous trauma. C.C. helps him with his fear and Buddy helps C.C. regain his
faith, if not his desire to preach, by showing him the small miracles in
everyday life. Meanwhile, the townspeople, desperate for a new minister, try to
force C.C. back into the hellfire-and-brimstone he left behind, as the drama
builds to a predictable, but powerful climax.
Written
almost as a passion play, “The Diviners” features characters whose names
indicate their inclination: Buddy needs
a friend, his father Ferris works with iron and is obsessed with machines, a
local naif is Dewey and his experienced friend is Wilder, the diner is run by
Goldie Short, a businesswoman preoccupied with money. Well, you get the picture.
In a Lamb’s Players
reprise, director Robert Smyth has delivered a simple, nuanced, and frankly
beautiful production. The set is spare,
and clever use is made of lighting and sound to evoke clear summer days or
pounding rainstorms. This is theater as
it is meant to be, making magic with just a few props, focused and finely honed
acting, and the audience’s imagination.
Several of the watery stage pictures are breathtaking, thanks to design
work by Mike Buckley and terrific lighting by David Thayer.
As Buddy, Nick
Cordileone is marvelous, in a powerful portrayal of a simpleton who is wisely
attuned to the land and its wonders.
David Cochran Heath, as C.C. Showers, gives a controlled, multi-faceted
performance as a man, beaten down by life and self-doubt, who struggles to regain
his connection to other people and to his faith. Tom Stephenson, as Ferris, is a true exemplar of the virtues of
hard work and Mid-Western values, sometimes funny and sometimes tough as
nails. Susan Clausen does her best work
as Buddy’s sister Jennie Mae, credibly tremulous and saucy as a young girl
searching for her first love. The rest
of the cast provides solid support.
True to their mission,
the Lambs Players have produced another fine play that is, at its core, about
the meaning of faith. Is it really only
about prohibitions and restrictions, with the threat of eternal damnation? Or, is it about loving others and helping
them, about easing their fears, and appreciating the gifts that are received
day to day? In the end, we don’t know
when it will rain. But as one character
puts it, “When it comes, we turn to each other and call it a blessing.”
“The Diviners” is for
those who’re happy just to float on the surface, or for those who like to plumb
the depths beneath a rushing current. It’s one moving, fluid production.
©1998 Patté Productions
Inc.