THE DIVINERS
So it’s particularly disappointing to see how inadequately the Pointe company–most of them, including director Louis Contey, recent graduates of the DePaul University Theatre School–have responded to these opportunities. It’s not just a matter of fluffed lines, studied or rushed delivery, and missed cues–though there were plenty of those at the performance I attended. What’s so distressing about this production is the apparent failure of the cast and director to understand the play they have chosen to present.
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Set in what the program calls “the mythical southern Indiana town of Zion”–the town’s name is the first of many biblical allusions–The Diviners tells the story of an itinerant ex-preacher and his fateful encounter with a strangely gifted, strangely cursed teenage boy. The ex-preacher, C.C. Showers, has turned away from his former calling in search of more real, more earthly values; instinctively and unconsciously seeking a way to use his talents for spiritual healing, he finds an outlet in his friendship with Buddy Layman, an illiterate, half-civilized wild child with a special sensitivity to water. Buddy can predict rainstorms and “divine” hidden wells deep under the parched earth; but he is terrified of being in water, so much so that he refuses to bathe.
This is not to say that The Diviners should be played without humor; quite the contrary. It is at many times a very funny play; the way Leonard links humor to horror is what gives The Diviners its particular flavor and distinguishes it from other works that it often resembles (The Miracle Worker, The Rainmaker, and Picnic, as well as The Grapes of Wrath, come quickly to mind).
