The Diviners At The Stratford Festival
The Diviners, a classic of Canadian literature by Margaret Laurence, is being brought to grand and glorious life in a sinuous adaptation by Vern Thiessen and Yvette Nolan on the stage of the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre.
The Diviners is a sprawling work that tells the story of Morag Gunn (Irene Poole). Orphaned as a child, she has a hard-scrabble upbringing in the fictional Manitoba backwater Manawaka, raised by Christy (Jonathan Goad), her late father’s old Army buddy. Christy looks after the Nuisance Grounds, the town’s dump, a job that has made him something of an outcast, and regales Morag with tales of their Scottish ancestors.
By the way, Manawaka is a stand-in for Laurence’s own hometown of Neepawa. It appears in all her novels and functioned for her much as Yoknapatawpha County did for Faulkner.
Morag bonds with her schoolmate Jules Tonnerre (Jesse Gervais), a proud Métis who refuses to sing “God Save The King.” Eager to escape Manawaka, Morag who is showing promise as writer, goes to university where she enters into an ill-advised relationship and later marriage with her much older professor, Brooke Skelton (Dan Chameroy).
Morag wants children but Brooke does not. What’s more he becomes increasingly threatened by her growing independence and success as a writer. Morag reconnects with Jules, now something of a troubadour who ekes out a living singing in bars, and conceives her daughter, Piquette or Pique (Julie Lumsden).
Raising a child as a single mother while pursuing a writing career proves difficult and eventually Pique leaves home to search for her roots. Eventually Morag comes into her own as a writer and produces a work (perhaps one much like The Diviners) in which she exorcises her demons and she reconciles with Pique.
One of the major achievements of The Diviners, the play, is that Thiessen and Nolan have done an excellent job of nipping and tucking characters and plot points to render an epic story into a lucid two and a half hour theater piece that captures the essence of Laurence’s work. Having read the novel, I was curious to know what those who had not would make of the piece. Chats with several theatergoers who were unfamiliar with the novel reassured me that the adapters have succeeded admirably.
Even more impressive is the way in which this iteration of The Diviners makes manifest the interlacing metaphors and themes of the novel. There is the Nuisance Ground where the secrets of a town are buried, only to be unearthed by the observant Christy; the river of time that flows both ways; the Métis women with second sight; the diviners who use dowsing sticks to discover water hidden underground; and the writer who mines her memories to create art and in the process discover herself.
I came away from the play with a much richer understanding and appreciation of The Diviners than I had when I read the novel.
Much of the credit for this illumination of Laurence’s work must go to the co-directors Krista Jackson and Geneviève Pelletier.
I have no problem with co-authorship. Successful playwrighting teams date back at least to Beaumont and Fletcher. I am more suspicious of two people directing a play, feeling that the direction of a play requires a single vision to be realized by a single artist. So WTF do I know?
Jackson and Pelletier have combined to create the seemingly perfect way of telling Morag’s and Pique’s story and who cares who contributed what?
Extensive use is made of music and dance. Darla Daniels is enchanting as “the Métis fiddler,” who ironically enough is using an instrument brought to Canada by settlers. Gabriel Antonacci, who also plays Pique’s would-be boyfriend Gord, is impressive as Fiddler Gunn, one of Morag’s ancestors.
Choreographer Cameron Carver has made imaginative use of the ensemble including some kickass Métis clogging assisted, so the program tells me, by Daniels. The directors and choreographer have also devised ways of dramatizing Morag’s frenzies of creativity at her typewriter that work beautifully. The alternatives are too grim to contemplate.
Set and lighting designer Bretta Gerecke has brought the Nuisance Ground on stage in the form of a colorful overhanging assemblage that looks a bit like a Calder mobile gone terribly wrong. Costume designer Jeff Chief has created some lovely outfits for indigenous characters. Andrine Turenne, composer, and MJ Dandeneau, music director and arranger, have provided a terrific aural environment.
A word must be said about the performances. Both Poole (who seldom leaves the stage) and Gervais do an exemplary job of depicting their characters at various ages, as does Lumsden as Pique. Goad’s Christy is a delight.
Not every directorial conceit works perfectly. It took me a while to identify an enigmatic figure (Caleigh Crow) in a gorgeous Métis robe who shadowed Morag and Pique as the spirit of Piquette, Pique’s aunt and namesake who was burned alive in an accident at her father’s moonshine still. And some just flat out don’t work at all. (Allison Edwards-Crewe in an Angela Davis wig playing a Scotswoman? Please.)
But these are minor quibbles. The Diviners is a major achievement and one of the highlights of the Stratford Festival’s season.
The Diviners continues at the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre through October 2, 2024. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Stratford Festival website.
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