The play chosen to open Theatre Palisades' 2011 season is an interesting choice (although an increasingly popular one with community theaters across the country since it serves as a metaphor for the current economic climate).

The Diviners by Jim Leonard, Jr. is set in a fictional mid-Western town named Zion during the Dust Bowl drought of the Great Depression. It starts with the announcement of the passing of lead character Buddy Layman, an idiot savant youth who has an amazing knack for locating water and foretelling rain in this barren agricultural environment (and, thus, was their last hope of survival). 

The rest of the play (told in flashback) reveals the last days leading up to the boy's impending death. Instead of having a traditional plot, this work is more of a "slice of life" meditation on the concept of destiny. Just as in Greek tragedies, the characters all seem doomed to their individual fates, no matter how hard they desperately fight against them.

Heavy-handed at times with religious allusions and water motifs (representing both life and death), Diviners is a very complex and difficult play to pull off, especially since the two lead characters, Buddy and an ex-preacher named C.C. Showers (who is trying to run away from God), are so emotionally guarded and/or isolated, the audience can never really get into their heads.

Theatre Palisades should get points for tackling such intense material. Unfortunately, they just missed hitting the (water) mark. (Perhaps, they were a little out of their "depths"?) The production never really captures the quiet desperation of that era, or why Buddy's death isn't just anecdotal. Although, this show is enjoyable enough for an evening's entertainment, it never seems to rise above that level and become the powerful experience that should be, resonating long after one leaves the theater.

Community theater can sometimes be like watching your local little league team. Since teams and coaches are all earnest members of the community (playing for no reward other than for "the love of the game"), it's very easy to root for their success and forgive their mistakes. Likewise, community theater, with its limited budgets and local volunteerism, also generally garners some slack when it comes to criticism, looking the other way when actors use the wrong character names, or arms reach out from the wings to fix things on the set, or backstage lights bleed through the set (all of which happened opening night).

In all honesty, considering this rich material, the performances were uneven, and at times fell into caricature (making the townspeople seem even more dim-witted than the mentally-challenged Buddy), as if prescribing to the theory that gestures and mannerisms need to be bigger when performing theater, which is not necessarily the case in the intimate setting of the Pierson Playhouse. Sometimes less is more, especially when handling this kind of a drama about simple (not simple-minded) town folk, whose simple actions compound into tragedy.

The exception to this was the incredibly nuanced (even subtle at times) performance by Oh Rhyne as Feriss Layman, Buddy's father. Despite his manly, gruff exterior, he allows the audience to glimpse the wounded man inside that is so scarred by his wife's death, he doesn't know how to relate to his also-damaged son (the living reminder of that tragedy). Ryhne seems to somehow ground this fictional world with a truth and reality, which allows the other actors to drift about, around him. Ryhne is really the reason to see this play. It is as good (if not better) a performance as anything I have ever seen on (or off) Broadway. 

Speaking of understated power, it's worth mentioning the brilliant part of the set design by Sherman Wayne. By "brilliant part," I mean the bottom 50 percent. The stage floor and wooden platform are truly inspired, and they work seamlessly, doubling for various locations (docks, porches, farmland, a diner, etc.) throughout the play. But, just as those basic elements were strangely multi-faceted, the top part of the stage consisting of an ugly brown wall and an abstract tree seem to serve no purpose at all. The one and only moment involving the tree could have easily been pantomimed like the other elements of the natural world depicted. A blank space behind the actors would have been better (and it would have emphasized how clever the bottom-half was).

Let's face it, the Palisades is not some little town in the middle of nowhere trying to put on a big show. It is, in fact, a significant part of the entertainment capital of the world, and, as such, should have a wealth of experienced talent to draw from in its own backyard. Therefore, the Theatre Palisades should be held to a higher standard than companies in other communities.

Do I recommend The Diviners? Sure. It's okay. Did I expect much more from this group? You bet. Am I interested in seeing the coming shows this season? Always.