The Diviners takes place in the fictional Indiana town of Zion...population forty. Zion is a small, rural community with a few houses and farms along the river. It takes place during the 1930's in the middle of the Great Depression. The characters in this play are all good, simple people. Their lives and livelihood depend on the soil for they are farmers and small town workers. They don't own or covet "possessions". They are very hard workers and their sole purpose is to survive during a time in history when survival wasn't easy. The people in this town are therefore very close. Everyone knows everyone and they depend on each other to do his or her part. One person who definitely does do his part is Buddy Layman. Buddy is in his teens, but he is brain-damaged due to a near drowning that happened when he was only four...a traumatic event that resulted in the death of his mother. The effects of this event have left Buddy with some peculiar behaviors...the main one being that he never progressed psychologically or intellectually beyond the age of four. He is therefore a four-year-old boy in the body of a teenager. His speech, body movements, interests and outlook are all that of a four year old little boy. He sees the world only with the limited understanding of a very young child so his innocence is pervasive. Another result of the event is that he has an irrational fear of water. As a result, he refuses to bathe or even be touched by water. He is severely eaten up with ringworm and rashes and is dirty all the time. But the most interesting result of his near-drowning experience is that he has the divine power to "water-witch". He can accurately predict, to the minute, when it will begin to rain. He is invaluable to the community of Zion because he can pinpoint the exact spot to dig for water in the ground. When he tells the local farmers it's going to rain, they lay their fields in rows and know it will be a good season. He is the local water-witcher, seeker and diviner and he is invaluable to a community that is almost solely dependent on their crops.
Into the town of Zion walks C.C. Showers. Showers is an ex-preacher who figures the only way he can put the life of the pulpit behind him is to escape to a town where no one knows he's been a preacher. He wants desperately to begin fresh somewhere else doing something else...anything but preaching. When he first enters Zion he meets Buddy and begins an instant friendship with the boy, his sister, Jenny Mae and their father, Ferris. Ferris gives him a job as a mechanic in his shop and a room as a boarder in their home. Showers and Buddy form a bond and Showers begins working with Buddy to try to get him to let go of his fear of water in an effort to try and clear the boy's infestation of ringworm and rashes.
Unfortunately for Showers, word gets out in Zion that he used to be a preacher and the townspeople, being desperate for a preacher of their own, keep pressuring and pestering him to take up the pulpit once more. This pressure culminates in the last scene of the play when Showers finally gets Buddy to trust him enough to go into the river...the same river that took the life of his mother and very nearly his own. While down at the river, several of the townspeople approach and in their zest for a "baptizin" Buddy loses his footing and is overtaken by the one thing he feared the most...water.
It must be understood that this is a very spiritual and even lyrical play. Several church hymns are sung throughout the play and the prevailing theme revolves around spirituality, faith and purity. This is a play about having faith...faith in the future, faith in others, faith in oneself and most of all faith in the divine. The metaphor of purity and water is also very prevalent. We see it in the main synopsis of the play where the idea of avoiding water has had an extremely negative effect. We see it in the name of the character who tries so hard to bring Buddy back to water...C.C. SHOWERS. We see it in the idea that without water, this community would not and could not survive. Think of purity in every way...purity of mind, body, soul, perception, love...Jim Leonard Jr. touches on each and every one of these throughout the play. He calls for a very minimal set and very scaled down costumes...purity and honesty must be so obvious throughout the production that they are almost tangible. As the director, I will be very focused on this idea of purity and how it relates to one's spirituality. I will expect honesty from the characters and will be looking for honesty at the auditions. Think minimalist, natural, honest, back to basics, purity, only what is necessary. These ideas will help you at auditions and throughout rehearsals. Be very familiar with the audition pieces posted on this blog.
