The Diviners
The Diviners
By Jim Leonard Jr.
Directed by Aradhana Tiwari
Starring CK Anderson and Michael Marinaccio
Beth Marshal Presents at the Garden Theatre, Winter Garden FL</strong>
It’s rare to find ringworm as a story motivator, but Jim Leonard Jr. handles it deftly giving us this dreamy memory play set in the depths of the depression. CC Showers (Marinaccio) used to preach but he’s given that up and hit the road looking for honest work in the depths of the depression. He hiked from Hazard Kentucky to Zion Indiana and winds up apprenticing in Ferris Layman’s (Don Fowler) garage. He’s the only person patient enough to deal with Ferris’s son Buddy (Anderson) – Buddy lost some capacity when he nearly drowned and is now plagued with a fear of water and a terrible itch. He’s also really good at witching water and predicting rain; the near death experience robbed him of one thing but gave him another. The town’s people adore CC; they desperately want a church again and his protestations about a career change are ignored. As Normal Henshaw (Marty Stonerock) proclaims ‘“You can’t quit the spirit!” Town doctor Basil Bennett (Mike Lane) helpfully point out Buddy has the worst case of ringworm he’s seen, and if he doesn’t bathe soon the child will go blind. Cold water is a start and CC convinces him he can breathe in the water and bathes him. At this precise moment Normal and the other righteous women of Zion town arrive, and while CC is convincing them he’s not baptizing anyone, Buddy gets what he’s always wanted – a chance to join his dead mother.
“The Diviners” holds your attention with a curious lack of the tensions and conflicts that most dramas offer. Practical Ferris hires the unskilled CC, everybody tolerates Buddy, and all the women throw themselves at CC while he carefully deflects them. Marinaccio is a fine speaker, he drops in to a preacher’s cant in the second act and some of us were ready to come down front and confess. Comic relief arrives from the hired hands Melvin (Andy Haynes) and Dewey (Daniel Crosby), they teach each other how to dance and debate their chances of avoiding hell as they nervously flirt with young Darlene Henshaw (Gwen Boniface). Lane laconic philosopher / healer avoids motors cars and other internal combustion engines – today he’d be “Green,” but back then he’d just be a gentleman farmer and likely to stave until they subdivided his land after the war.
With Ms. Tiwari direction flowing like water, this parable of tolerance and good intention takes place on a mystical set by Tommy Mangieri. A rickety windmill and the tree from Godot hide behind a scrim and skeleton houses slide in and out of our perception. Once Buddy agrees to put his feet into the “Itch Juice” the end is inevitable – the water he fears will do him in and destroy CC. Everyone we meet is sadder and hungrier than before but the villainy remains distant: the banks and Herbert Hoover aren’t responsible for this evil, it’s just an existential event. There’s no avoiding it, and the only remediation is time, time and more time and the only place to find that is in the sky with Jesus and Mom and Buddy. It’s the saddest happy ending you’ll ever see.
For more information on The Garden Theatre, please visit www.gardentheatre.org
