Review: Driving Miss Daisy by The Georgetown Palace Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Driving Miss Daisy is about nostalgia and trust, but it is also about entropy.
Fortunate or not in this material life, we can all expect to age, to slow, and to become feeble. We may dislike growing old, but we shun the obvious alternative.
That major theme should be mirrored in the dynamic of these familiar characters and in the rhythm of the production.
We meet dowager Miss Daisy at a peak of annoyance. Momentarily confused a few days before at the wheel of her three-week-old Packard, she characteristically jammed down the accelerator instead of the brake. Now no sane insurance company will provide coverage for her driving. Her son Boolie has to deal with Mama's hornet's nest of feelings, has to set up transportation for her and has to continue dealing with his own demanding business affairs.
The play begins in crisis, annoyance, stress and rejection. Energy should be sparking in every direction.
B.J. Machalicek as Mama emphatically declines the notion of using a chauffeur, but Andy Brown as Boolie sees no alternative. In his first interview he comes across Hoke Coleburn (Robert King, Jr.), a methodical, competent, sanguine man with superb references.
The game of Driving Miss Daisy becomes one of balancing Miss Daisy's ferociousness with Hoke's patient good sense, and then demonstrating the growth of their mutual dependence. Along the way there will be glimpses of some of the polarization and the hate dramas we Southerners experienced back then, but we as an audience will be safe in the car with Hoke and Miss Daisy.
Everyone sitting in the audience knows how all of this is going to develop and turn out. That's a given; the Palace knowingly balanced the draw of a beloved story against the risk of inevitable comparisons with the motion picture. The 1990 film of Driving Miss Daisy won four Oscars, including Best Actress recognition for Jessica Tandy. Both Morgan Freeman as Hoke and Dan Ackroyd as Boolie received Oscar nominations.
Each of the actors in the Palace cast is appealing, but the entropy sets in far too soon in this production. B.J. Machalicek has energy, but she is more fretful than autocratic. Andy Brown's Boolie is gentle to a fault, as if Mama had already slipped into inattention some years earlier, and he shows none of the tension or impatience that might dog a successful, striving businessman. Robert King, Jr., plays Hoke with such restraint and deliberation that he could already be an 80-year-old from his first moments onstage.
So we feel no suspense about the expected outcome, and under Mary Ellen Butler's direction the principal characters appear to be walking deliberately through the actions. We might have been able to coast with that, but in addition we regularly have to wait, in the dark, for continuations.
The Palace design staff has secured impressive furniture for Miss Daisy's house, and they don't have to move it around much. But they do trundle that mock car interior heavily out of the depths of the stage every time it's needed, then, under cover of darkness, drag it noisily back again. With the wide lateral reach of the Palace stage, the automobile could have been a static piece, as it was in production last year in the tiny Hill Country Community Theatre, out in Marble Falls. (King played Hoke in that one, too.)
Some of the pauses must be ascribed to the impressively extensive wardrobe worn by Miss Daisy in the course of this two hours. Her costumes are striking, appropriate and impressive, but surely they could have been simpler and, above all, the changes could have been swifter.
The actors hit all their marks, including pained, meaningful pauses on both sides when Miss Daisy only half-invites Hoke to come see Martin Luther King. All three do the final scene in the nursing home, Boolie retiring as directed by his mama while Hoke spoon feeds Miss Daisy (two spoonfuls before the final blackout, not one).
And literally to end it all, the choreography on the curtain call is just bizarre. Stage lights come up on Machalicek and King, still inclined over meal. They remain immobile. We are confused. Andy Brown walks out, faces us, and takes what we belatedly realize is his bow. He fetches Hoke, who shuffles three steps before suddenly juvenating and transforming into King, with a broad smile not seen before. King fetches Daisy, who also goes through a galling make-'em-wait-for-it transformation into Machalicek.
As if ol' Entropy just wouldn't let go of them, even though the play was over.
EXTRA
Click to view program for Driving Miss Daisy by Georgetown Palace Theatre
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Driving Miss Daisy
by Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman
Georgetown Palace Theatre
