Driving Miss Daisy is engaging and unparalleled performance as the stars James Earl Jones (Hoke) and Vanessa Redgrave (Miss Daisy). They connect on a level that is professional yet intimate to bring the audience into their interesting and intertwining lives. Both actors have a history of great performances, and they don’t disappoint in this stage dramatization.
As a wealthy Jewish Widow in Atlanta, Georgia in 1948, Miss Daisy is 72 years of age her son, Boyd has taken away her driving privileges. He has hire Hoke on a weekly salary to serve as her personal chauffeur. Tensions are high and Miss Daisy does all she can not to accept the new situation. Out of answers and patience and with a need to go to the market, she takes her first ride with Hoke and straight-away, the audience knows it’s going to be a heck of a ride and a heck of a great show!
The two opposites in personality make for fierce competition in seeking authority and respect between themselves. Their families are kept at a easy distance for resolve as Hoke and Miss Daisy eventually come to tackle their differences.
Redgrave portrays herself with grace and sternness, as a once beloved teacher of children, recounting the memories of bygone days in the classroom instructing the youth, as Jones goes about doing his job as a chauffer, attending to her as if she were a related blood sister or aunt. He refuses to let the antics of “Miss Daisy” get between his love for his job (and the paycheck that comes with it) and his mission of keeping her safe to her various destinations—the market, the Jewish Temple and to a momentous occasion to hear the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King give a speech at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church.
In the end, after 20 years together, Hoke and Miss Daisy have developed a bond that will last the rest of their lifetimes. In the last act, Miss Daisy ends up in a wheelchair in a retirement home and Boyd makes sure to still send a weekly salary to Hoke—who can barely drive himself anywhere anymore and relies on his now, 30-year-old daughter to take him around–Hoke still takes time to go visit his old ‘boss lady’ Miss Daisy whenever he gets a chance. The loving compassion between them makes you wonder, just how differently things may have been between them in a different era with less discrimination that may have taken their relationship to another level of love.
Broadway play revival, at the John Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St.
Written by Alfred Uhry.
Directed by David Esbjornson.
With James Earl Jones, Vanessa Redgrave and Boyd Gaines.
Schedule: 7 p.m. Tuesday; 8 p.m. Monday, Thursday and Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday.
Tickets: $65 to $125. Telecharge: 212-239-6200, or at telecharge.com.
