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| Photo By Kristin Clippard |
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(L-R) Hoke (Darryl Hilton), Daisy (Eleanor B. Shepherd) and Boolie (Bob Brunner) are at the center of Clear Stage Cincinnati's production of Driving Miss Daisy
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Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize winning play,
Driving Miss Daisy, hasn't been around all that long. It came to the stage in 1988, but it quickly became a film starring Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy. Perhaps the fact that it won 1989 Academy Awards for best picture and best actress makes the genteel stage play feel like a classic, but watching this pleasant script as produced by Clear Stage Cincinnati I had the distinct feeling I was viewing a show that had been around for a long, long time. This loving but too deliberate production makes Uhry's writing feel dated and lacking in vitality.
Eleanor B. Shepherd plays Daisy Werthan, an aging, outspoken Jewish woman in Atlanta, age 72 when the story opens in 1948. Her accident-filled driving record has moved her son, Boolie (Bob Brunner), to hire a driver to chauffeur his mother. Hoke (Darryl Hilton) is no spring chicken himself, but he's been a driver and he needs the job.
As it turns out, he's the perfect match to Daisy, who has opinions about most things and is distrustful of just about everyone. Hoke's simple honesty and unflaggingly pleasant assistance wins her over, and after several decades set against a backdrop of segregation and racial unrest, they end up in 1973 as the best of friends.
One of the challenges of Driving Miss Daisy is the demarcation of passing time. The script gives a few cues, especially as new cars are required (Hoke develops a practice of buying the one being replaced) and events in the larger world (a speech by Martin Luther King Jr.) pass by. But this production fails to provide much sense that stretches of seven or eight years have elapsed. Hilton's hair is grayed a bit more, and he's squinting and wearing glasses by the end; Shepherd affects a stiffer, more difficult gait and affects a wide-eyed, addled stare when she has a disconcerting memory lapse. But these changes are not enough to cue the audience that we're ticking through nearly three decades of time.
More troubling, however, is Kristin Clippard's direction, which too often has the actors moving so slowly and deliberately that I thought audience members might decide to get up and help them down a set of steps. This is not a long play -- Clear Stage's production comes in just under two hours, with a 15-minute intermission -- but there are moments when it feels interminable.
Daisy is a brisk, brusque and feisty woman; Hoke is a sly foil to her, and we need to perceive his quick wit. He knows the kind of woman she is, gruff and opinionated but fair and caring, and he should be willing to get beyond her exterior. Too much of this production is caught up in external physical action and not enough in the revelation and evolution of the souls of these two people who bridge a vast gulf to find friendship.
The stage design (by Jason Baker) has some nice details, especially Miss Daisy's quaint living room. But spreading the full width of the Aronoff Center's Fifth Third Bank Theater with an office on one side for Boolie and an empty expanse in the middle with four chairs used as various automobiles means too much time and energy is dissipated in moving back and forth. That further distances the relationships between the characters and drains away the production's immediacy.
To Clear Stage's credit, they've clearly picked a show that will draw an audience. I attended opening night, and every seat was filled for a pay-what-you-can performance. The audience was diverse, people willing to watch a story about crossing racial and class divides. And they liked it, giving it a standing ovation. I just wish this version of Driving Miss Daisy had more snap and vivacity, so I could say it's one people will remember. Grade: B-
DRIVING MISS DAISY, presented by Clear Stage Cincinnati at the Aronoff Center's Fifth Third Bank Theater, continues through Saturday.
