Theatre Review: Driving Miss Daisy (Richmond Theatre & touring)

David Esbjornson’s revival of Alfred Uhry’s 1987 play Driving Miss Daisy scored a big success first on Broadway and then in London’s West End at Wyndham’s last year, with the powerhouse duo of Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones—both in rather affected, hammy mode—in the lead roles. The production now tours, with Gwen Taylor and Don Warrington replacing Redgrave and Jones. For me, the production actually benefits considerably from this cast change, with Taylor and Warrington both delivering subtler, more nuanced performances that are much more in keeping with the spirit of this most delicate and low-key of dramas.

Indeed, Uhry’s play—which charts the gradual growth into closeness of an elderly Jewish woman, Daisy Werthan, and her African-American chauffeur Hoke Coleburn over almost three decades in Atlanta, Georgia—is a very slight piece of work, one which Bruce Beresford’s 1989 film starring Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman and Dan Aykroyd succeeded in fleshing out much more substantially.

With black-and-white backdrops offering images of Martin Luther King and the KKK, the social context feels considerably sketchier in the stage version, and, in addition, the way that the driving scenes are handled in Esbjornson’s production still remains a problem for me—the sight of the two actors sitting on a bench and a chair as one rotates a steering wheel attached to a silver pole never allows the viewer to really suspend disbelief.

But the heart of the piece is Daisy and Hoke’s relationship as it moves from suspicion and disdain (on her side) into dependency, trust and friendship, and that trajectory is touchingly charted here. With Redgrave and Jones in the roles—she either rattling through the lines at breakneck speed or else drawling them out affectedly, and he bellowing and cackling—the play felt strangely unbalanced: there seemed barely a moment when the viewer wasn’t aware of observing icons, acting.

In contrast, Taylor and Warrington inhabit the roles of Daisy and Hoke in a more natural, less self-conscious manner, cutting out the affectation. Taylor communicates Daisy’s cantankerousness without overplaying it, showing the ex-schoolmistress used to being in control who’s frustrated and challenged by what she perceives to be her loss of independence. She brings unforced humour to the role, as well as some understated lyricism to the scene in which Daisy tells Hoke about the first time she saw the ocean. Warrington partners her excellently, nicely conveying Hoke’s wariness and his wry wit, and he’s especially good in the scene in which the character’s illiteracy is revealed.

The likeable Ian Porter also does a more relaxed job than Boyd Gaines in the role of Daisy’s son Boolie, communicating both the character’s exasperation at, and affection for, his mother’s behaviour. In sum, this expert trio of actors bring just the right amount of humour and heart to this modest play, making this incarnation of Esbjornson’s production a less "starry" but much more emotionally involving affair. Recommended.

Theatre Review: Driving Miss Daisy (Wyndham's)

Sometimes, material that struck you as believable and poignant on film can end up seeming broad, cardboard and obvious on stage. This may sound like something of a contradictory statement after my remarks about The Deep Blue Sea in the previous review, but it’s one that I stand by in relation to the unhappy experience that was Calendar Girls and also - to a lesser yet perhaps more painful extent - in relation to David Esbjornson’s production of Driving Miss Daisy which ends its successful run at Wyndham’s next week.

Alfred Uhry’s 1987 play - which charts the gradual growth into closeness of an elderly Jewish woman and her African-American chauffeur Hoke over almost three decades in Atlanta, Georgia - was made into a fine film by Bruce Beresford in 1989 with Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman and Dan Aykroyd in the lead roles. Beresford’s is pretty much an ideal play-to-film transposition it seems to me (the script was written by Uhry himself), skilfully “opened out” with new scenes and additional characters that add texture and nuance, and a very touching relationship, delicately underplayed, at its centre. But on stage - and despite the presences of Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones - the piece seems more inconsequential and considerably less affecting.

It’s not just the way that the driving’s handled in Esbjornson’s production that’s the problem - though the sight of the two actors sitting on a bench and a chair as Jones rotates a steering wheel attached to a pole can’t exactly be said to help matters. It’s more that the social context seems much sketchier here, and also that a level of hamminess in the performances sometimes exposes the faker elements in the material.

Vanessa Redgrave - still so often a magnetic presence and so very good in the upcoming Coriolanus - doesn’t seem completely in her element in this role. She communicates Daisy’s cantankerousness amusingly enough, and tries out a few typically odd, inventive things, including a bizarre bit of Isadora-esque movement as the punch-line to the scene in which Daisy convinces herself that Hoke's been stealing. But such bits of business don’t seem precisely in character. Elsewhere, she tends to either rattle through the lines at breakneck speed - one of the loveliest passages, Miss Daisy’s recollection of the first time that she saw the ocean, is all but thrown away - or else drawls them out affectedly: “A’hm naht pre-edge-jerdiced.” (Her wavering Southern accent recalls the one she used to much greater effect in her startling turn as Miss Amelia in The Ballad of the Sad Café [1991].) James Earl Jones’s performance is all about The Voice, and although he has some effective moments, he indulges in a tad too much bellowing and cackling. And Boyd Gaines as Daisy’s son Boolie also strikes over-effusive notes. A few scenes - Hoke’s confession of his illiteracy; the Alzheimer’s-afflicted Miss Daisy finally speaking the truth about what Hoke means to her - resonate. But overall Esbjornson’s production offers less of a sense of involvement in characters and relationships than it does the spectacle of observing icons, acting. A compliant - or complacent? - mood of reverence (including applause between the scene changes) fills the auditorium.

The production runs for 1 hour 30 minutes, until December 17th.