STAGE REVIEW : ‘Diviners’ Floods Stage With Emotion : Discovery: Strong story of aversion to and affinity for water, by playwright Leonard, presented movingly by La Jolla Stage Company.

A Depression-era boy, whose mother drowned when he was 4, has such a deadly fear of water that he can’t stand to be washed.

He seems slightly retarded and certainly disturbed, but his phobia about water gives him an amazing talent for divining water from the ground (he can tell farmers where to dig wells) and from the sky (he can tell farmers when to expect rain).

The boy, Buddy, is one of the diviners in “The Diviners,” a dark and deeply affecting tale by Jim Leonard Jr., being presented by the La Jolla Stage Company at the Parker Auditorium in La Jolla through Oct. 27.

The other diviner in the show is a wandering preacher, C.C. Showers, who is disenchanted with the church and wants to make a new life for himself as a manual laborer in the rural Indiana community where the boy lives. Showers doesn’t know anything about divining water, but he does “divine” something sweetly compelling in Buddy that makes him want to cure him of his fears.

There is still another “diviner”--the community itself. Half the people in the small southern Indiana town of Zion--mostly men--divine the boy’s affliction as a blessing that helps them with their farming. The other half--mostly women--divine the unwashed boy as a symbol of the problems that stem from an unbaptized life. The women want a preacher in the town--something they haven’t had for a long time. They divine their salvation--and the boy’s--in Showers, who does not want to play that role at all.

The conflicting divinations lead to a tragedy that, while telegraphed from the beginning of the play, still comes as a shock.

The strength of the story, last seen in an acclaimed production at the Lamb’s Players Theatre five years ago, is the chief strength of the show at La Jolla Stage. The company, which makes its bid to be considered as a professional theater with this play, has a raw, unpolished ensemble with occasional sparks of fire. The cast doesn’t consistently plumb the depths of this rich material, but director Linus Weiss harnesses the sparks and, in selected moments, the show burns itself into the consciousness.

Those moments alone make the play worth seeing.

Elliott Kennerson, a high school student at Bishop’s School in La Jolla, makes his youth work for him in portraying the vulnerable young Buddy. At times, he conveys the confusion and anguish of Buddy’s condition with startling immediacy.

More power and subtlety are needed from Seth Neely as C.C. Showers; he needs to find his depth of anger against the church he has rejected. More subtlety and force are needed, too, from Dennis Kostecki as the boy’s father and Jodie Knutson as his loving sister, Jennie Mae Layman, who is falling in love with Showers.

Portrayal of the one-dimensional characters is more successful. Robyn Hampton brings fervent conviction to Norma, a true believer who inadvertently helps precipitate tragedy. Katie Rodda injects humor as Norma’s man-crazed niece Darlene.

Another strength of this production is Nick Reid’s excellent set. The stage slopes down toward the front, suggesting the river (in which the boy’s mother drowned) flowing right into the audience. The starkness of the town is accentuated by several tall poles. Most effectively and eerily, the characters not in an immediate scene sit on chairs at the back of the stage, watching the action in the way the dead sit and watch the action in the final act of “Our Town.”

The lighting by Louis Tury complements the set design, as do the rural 1930s costumes by Margaret Hagar.

These design elements, along with the directing and, less consistently, the acting, work together to create an atmosphere of longing and loneliness, of human frailty and the great price paid for small missteps and misunderstandings.

This production of “The Diviners” may not be as divine as it could be, but it is a poetic endeavor, sensitively done. This is an auspicious beginning for a theater trying to move into a more professional track.

“THE DIVINERS”

By Jim Leonard Jr. Director is Linus Weiss. Set by Nick Reid. Costumes by Margaret Hagar. Lighting by Louis Tury. With Elliott Kennerson, Jodie Knutson, Dennis Kostecki, Seth Neely, Robyn Hampton, Katie Rodda, Gwendolyne Wagner, Douglas Gabrielle, Gabriella Antico, Wendel J. Lucas and Darrin Long. At 8 p.m. Oct. 17-19 and 25-26 with matinees at 2 p.m. Oct. 19 and Oct. 27. Tickets are $11-13. At 750 Nautilus St., La Jolla, 459-7773.