In Beth Marshall Presents’ gorgeous production, the hardscrabble town of Zion, Indiana, is also a place where a gleam of hope trickles in, like light filtered through clouds – rain clouds that the town desperately needs. At the center of the tale is a boy with a way with water. Buddy Layman, barely a teenager, survived the river accident that claimed his mama when he was just a baby.
Now he’s a diviner: He can find water in the ground, he can sense when it will rain. He has also been “touched” — a simple boy, he refers to himself in the third person, he has to have colors and the concept of heaven explained to him. But mostly, overwhelmingly, Buddy is terrified of contact with water. He refuses to bathe or even touch it. It’s up to ex-preacher C.C. Showers to lead him to the water, in both the physical and spiritual sense. Source: By Matthew J. Palm, Orlando Sentinel Theater Critic
Role: JENNIE MAE
