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UW-L’s cast captured the spirit and emotion of its characters and the story in a rural melodrama during the Dust Bowl to open the 2008-09 theater season Saturday in Toland Theatre.
The crowd responded with a rousing ovation.
It’s a lovely, touching performance. It’s a story of too much faith and too little faith, too much hope and too little hope. Fear, doubts and misunderstanding rule lives. It is the tale of a search for spirituality.
The story focuses on a teenage boy, Buddy, and his friendship with a fallen-away preacher, C.C. Showers, in a small southern Indiana town in the early 1930s. Showers arrives in town and meets Buddy, who suffered trauma as a child in a near drowning. His mother died saving him. That left Buddy deathly afraid of the water, but he also had a gift for divining water.
Townspeople counted on Buddy to feel the weather to bring rain to their crops, and the women in the community had their prayers for a preacher answered when Showers came to town.
In his first UW-L play, freshman Zachary Keenan was sensational, showing some maturity as an actor in playing Buddy with playfulness, innocence and delight. Brandon Harris was outstanding in playing the ex-preacher with delicate kindness and wit.
As Buddy’s father, Drew Birmingham may have given the best performance of anyone because he was an extremely convincing dad and man. Claire Ganshert is sweet and caring as Jennie May, Buddy’s sister. You’d want her for a sister.
Buddy never washes and develops ringworm. Showers finally convinces Buddy to get in the river to wash him, and the townspeople mistake the scene for a baptism. Confusion surrounds the scene in a dramatic ending.
Director Mary Leonard said people will be lifted in some way by the play. I think she is right. Perhaps it’s because Buddy was a blessing, or we have learned a little bit about ourselves through the characters.
“The Diviners” has a 2 p.m. matinee performance today and runs Oct. 16-19 in Toland Theatre, (608) 785-8522.
