In the small town of Zion, Indiana, lives a Depression-era boy named Buddy who is traumatized by his mother's drowning, an event that leaves him affected in several ways. The boy, Buddy has the mental capacity of a child and such a deadly phobia of water that he can't bear to be washed. Possessing a miraculous "touch and a feel for water"(8), Buddy is one of the diviners referred to in the title with his mystical ability of divining water from the ground and predicting rain. The play has another diviner, but of a different kind, in the symbolically named C.C. Showers, a wandering preacher "who ain't preachin no more" (24). He arrives in Zion looking for work, determined to start a new life and forming a genuine, strong attachment to Buddy. It is this growing bond between an endearing, troubled youth with a terrible fear of water and a disenchanted, caring ex-preacher that is at the heart of the play. In Jim Leonard Jr.'s deeply affecting play, The Diviners despite Buddy and Shower's developing relationship, the well intentioned but misguided Zion townspeople and their preoccupation with religion precipitates the play's fateful, tragic course of events.
             From the beginning, when it is announced in the first elegy that Buddy Layman has "passed beyond us" (7), the boy's death at the play's conclusion seems only inevitable despite still being shocking. His innocence and vulnerability present him as a touching figure, further emphasizing the tragedy of his death. Not really understood by the small Zion community, Buddy's condition is viewed by the Zion men as a blessing that helps them with their farming while the women see the unwashed boy as a symbol of problems that result from being unbaptized. Norma, a zealous townswoman possessing great religious faith expresses the emotions of many women when she declares:
            
             "I have been prayin for this for...