Theater Review: ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ a nostalgic, overly comfortable journey through civil rights-era South
Let’s be frank: I’m conflicted by Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Driving Miss Daisy,” the Fine Art Center’s Black History Month offering. It runs through Feb. 21.
In theory, it’s a heartwarming story: At 72, feisty Daisy Werthan isn’t interested in giving up her driving privileges, even after piloting her new Packard across her Atlanta driveway and onto a neighbor’s garage. Nevertheless, son Boolie hires driver Hoke Colburn and a 25-year relationship between the wealthy Jewish lady and her “colored” chauffeur begins.
From radically different classes, yet both disdained by Atlanta’s white Christian upper crust, the two come to care for each other, after a fashion. And each evolves: Daisy puts aside some of her fear of change and Hoke shucks part of the agreeable mask he’s obliged to wear, revealing more of his authentic self.
“I ain’ no dog and I ain’ no chile and I ain’ jes’ a back of a neck you look at while you goin’ wherever you want to go,” he tells Daisy in a pivotal scene.
Nice, but it’s all so curiously comfortable. Although “Daisy” unfolds from 1948 to 1973, Uhry takes his audience through a sanitized heart of the civil rights movement. Humor tempers the hard edges and somehow Daisy’s prejudice and Hoke’s unenviable circumstances don’t really seem all that bad. It’s nostalgic, even.
Masterful performances in this three-person play, the first in Uhry’s exploration of Jewish life called the Atlanta Trilogy, can make “Daisy” memorable. But on opening night, Billie McBride and Joseph W. Lane, as Daisy and Hoke, hadn’t quite gotten there, although both are very funny throughout.
McBride returns to the FAC stage after a touted 2015 performance in the company’s “4000 Miles.” As Daisy, McBride delivers her character’s vitality, intelligence and bristling indignation with Technicolor fire. But she doesn’t explore the nuance underneath. And her all-important connection to Hoke felt like something that arrived, per the script, in the final scenes. It’s hard to believe that he’s really her best friend, as she declares toward the end. Her Southern accent, too, was excellent on some words, but needs work to hit the “strong Atlanta accent” Uhry calls for in the script.
Lane has played Hoke before – notably for the FAC’s Scott RC Levy, who was the producing artistic director of the Penobscot Theatre Company in Maine at the time. For all of that experience, Lane seems tentative in the role, like a man who’s trying on a glove that’s way too big for him. I yearned for him to lean into Hoke’s true voice, as well as the anger and pride that simmer under Hoke’s surface.
As Boolie, Steve Emily quickly relaxed into his role as Daisy’s bemused (and amused) son. His Southern drawl was on the money and just strong enough to remind you where (and when) you were. Emily made me like Boolie, and I wanted to see more of his story. (I guess I’ll have to rent the movie, which Uhry adapted and along the way fleshed out many of the secondary roles.)
Christopher L. Sheley’s set was economical, poetic and, with the help of Holly Anne Rawls’ lighting, created clearly delineated shifts from location to location. Thanks to Levy’s smart blocking, every inch of the stage was used. And beautifully so.
Costumes by Janson Fangio were terrific, as usual. A special nod goes to Boolie’s wonderful Christmas smoking jacket, which was loud enough to deserve its own credit in the cast list.
FAC Theater “Driving Miss Daisy” Wednesday February 3, 2016. Photo by Jeff Kearney
Tracy Mobley-Matinez Saturday December 13, 2014. Photo by Jeff Kearney
Joseph W. Lane as Hoke and Steve Emily as Boolie in the FAC’s production of “Driving Miss Daisy.”
Billie McBride as Daisy Werthan in “Driving Miss Daisy.”
FAC Theater “Driving Miss Daisy” Wednesday February 3, 2016. Photo by Jeff Kearney