Driving Miss Daisy was recently cited by Spike Lee as a drama whose time has passed. That’s true if it’s regarded as mainly about race relations in America now. But it actually spans a period from 1948 to 1973 when, as director Howard Millman asserts, “the characters in this play are products of their time and the world they grew up in.” Westcoast Black Theater Troupe illustrate their history and that of people ethnically like themselves in a not atypical Southern city (Atlanta). With a directorial emphasis on the characters‘ ages, Driving Miss Daisy hits a major chord today, especially in places like Florida with its large older population. In fact, the Sarasota audience I joined snickered audibly when Daisy’s son Booie told her she definitely needed a driver because she was a “terrible risk”, being 72 years old! Carolyn Michel’s authoritative Miss Daisy puts Booie in the unenviable position of forcing her to give up her car keys. As for the reasons she wants to keep driving, they’re summed up in her claim, “I was brought up to do for myself.” And she obviously did a lot, especially as a public school teacher, in addition to being a wife, mother, and heart of a considerable household. With a part-time cook-cleaner, she’s managed as its head since being widowed, maintaining the frugality she’d always been taught. To Taurean Blacque’s impressive Hoke, it’s a marvel the many ways Miss Daisy doesn’t realize she’s rich. Though dedicated to his work, he seems to maintain as good a family and off-work life as possible. He’s wise to conduct his job finances solely with Kraig Swartz’s likeable Booie. All of them suffer from prejudices against them -- racial in Hoke’s case, religious in Daisy’s, ethnic in Booie’s. But they do not inflict such prejudices on one another. On several important occasions, they spontaneously help each other. Still, social attitudes continue to keep the characters in their separate worlds. Daisy and Hoke end up partly in each other’s as well as their own, for an almost fairy tale-like conclusion. Their friendship has been established but it would be unlikely to continue anyplace other than where they’ve been and are now. It’s nice for us to visit them but after the show we have to come home. (And consider Spike Lee’s point of view?) Though the set is serviceable, its components are a bit crowded when on the same horizontal line. Costumes work when, particularly in the case of Miss Daisy, additions (like a coat and hat or a robe) to a basic outfit have to make it seem like a new one. (Michel doesn’t usually have time to change between scenes.) A dial-up telephone on a post is used effectively while reminding of the past time evoked by the play.
Miscellaneous:
