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The Diviners: A play based on the novel by Margaret Laurence
Considered a masterpiece of Canadian literature, Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners is the compelling story of Morag Gunn, a woman who perseveres through challenge after challenge as she attempts to carve out an authentic life as a writer. The play moves backward and forward through time, taking us to Morag’s impoverished childhood in rural Manitoba, her early struggles to establish herself as a female artist, and her present, as she works to finish a novel while navigating a thorny relationship with her teenage daughter, Pique. Inextricably bound with Morag’s Scottish settler story is the Metis story of Jules Tonnerre, her friend, lover, and Pique’s father. Adapted for the stage by Vern Thiessen with Yvette Nolan, The Diviners illuminates issues of identity, class, and reconciliation.
142 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2024
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August 10, 2025
Repurposed Diviners 🍁
A review of the Scirocco Drama paperback (October 1, 2024).
I saw the play last summer at the Stratford Festival in Canada but held off on reviewing the playscript until I had re-read the novel in order to refresh my memory. That review is here.
Thiessen & Nolan's theatrical adaptation does a miraculous job in distilling the rather lengthy novel (560 pages in the edition I read) into a 2+ hour production. The number of scene changes from present to past are almost dizzying with characters crossing over between the two timelines. It is not obvious in the printed stage directions on how this is to be managed. In practice, the trick was that the older Morag Gunn wore glasses and the younger one didn't. Of course the lead actor also has to be convincing in switching from the young shy orphan girl to the older independent woman.
Thiessen & Nolan & the stage directors also expanded the borders of the book with an actual bagpiper to embody Morag's mythic ancestor Piper Gunn leading the Scots Sutherlanders to Canada. This is balanced with expanding the Métis heritage of the Tonnerre family by including a Métis fiddler and the opportunity for the ensemble to perform some mass Métis jig dancing. Some of the lyrics to Margaret Laurence's songs by Morag's lover Jules Tonnerre were sung in the Métis Michif language, something that was not in the original book.
The cast of the 2024 Stratford Festival production at curtain call. Lead actor Irene Poole, who played Morag Gunn, is centre stage behind the typewriter on the floor. Image from own photo.
It was all very faithful to the book, but it managed to expand its reach in the spirit of the Stratford Festival's increased efforts to live up to Canada's Truth & Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action #83.
Trivia and Links
The house programme booklet for the 2024 Stratford Festival production is available here (links to a pdf file). NOTE: The link may be time limited, but was still available as of August 2025.
A review of the Scirocco Drama paperback (October 1, 2024).
COMPANY: (Singing) There's a valley holds my name.
There's a valley holds my name.
CRISPIN has handed MORAG a copy of the novel - The Diviners.
MORAG: ...when you're in that place of darkness...
...all you can do is...
Look ahead into the past.
And back into the future.
Until there's silence.
She slowly hands the novel to PIQUE.
PIQUE receives it, as the great gift it is.
I saw the play last summer at the Stratford Festival in Canada but held off on reviewing the playscript until I had re-read the novel in order to refresh my memory. That review is here.
Thiessen & Nolan's theatrical adaptation does a miraculous job in distilling the rather lengthy novel (560 pages in the edition I read) into a 2+ hour production. The number of scene changes from present to past are almost dizzying with characters crossing over between the two timelines. It is not obvious in the printed stage directions on how this is to be managed. In practice, the trick was that the older Morag Gunn wore glasses and the younger one didn't. Of course the lead actor also has to be convincing in switching from the young shy orphan girl to the older independent woman.
Thiessen & Nolan & the stage directors also expanded the borders of the book with an actual bagpiper to embody Morag's mythic ancestor Piper Gunn leading the Scots Sutherlanders to Canada. This is balanced with expanding the Métis heritage of the Tonnerre family by including a Métis fiddler and the opportunity for the ensemble to perform some mass Métis jig dancing. Some of the lyrics to Margaret Laurence's songs by Morag's lover Jules Tonnerre were sung in the Métis Michif language, something that was not in the original book.
The cast of the 2024 Stratford Festival production at curtain call. Lead actor Irene Poole, who played Morag Gunn, is centre stage behind the typewriter on the floor. Image from own photo.
It was all very faithful to the book, but it managed to expand its reach in the spirit of the Stratford Festival's increased efforts to live up to Canada's Truth & Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action #83.
Trivia and Links
The house programme booklet for the 2024 Stratford Festival production is available here (links to a pdf file). NOTE: The link may be time limited, but was still available as of August 2025.
Displaying 1 of 1 review