The Buzz

FROM THE LEDGER DISPATCH, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2004, BY ELOISE SNYDER

"Driving Miss Daisy" launches local dinner theatre "Driving Miss Daisy," the tender chronicle of a late-years friendship that overreaches color and culture, introduced Main Street Theatre Works "dinner theatre" with skill and style at the Daffodils Restaurant opener in Sutter Creek. The sensitive saga of a unique and abiding human relationship was a wise choice to launch the company’s ambitious change in format and to frame the professionalism of a cast of three in a new venue. The set is spare but clever. The talent is gilt-edged with the capacity to evoke gentle laughter and an occasional tear. Alfred Uhry’s 1987 play that became an acclaimed movie starring Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman and Dan Akroyd links an unlikely pair whose bonding over 25 years gets off to a rocky start. A widowed Miss Daisy Werthan (Hazel Johnson), age 72, resident of Atlanta in the Georgia of 1948, is a woman in comfortable circumstances but showing signs of advancing age. She is stubbornly resistant to the urging of her successful businessman son, Boolie (Daniel Clark), that she give up driving her car. He has a point. "What company would insure someone who totaled a new car, a garage and a toolshed all in one fell swoop?" Boolie asks. Against her wishes, he hires Hoke Coleburn (Osborne West) as her driver. A stubborn Miss Daisy allows him to sit in the kitchen for six days before agreeing to let him drive her to Piggly Wiggly’s to shop. Hoke calls Boolie while she is in the store - and with the car keys in her possession - to report in triumph: "I just drove your mother to Piggly Wiggly. It took six days, just what it took the Lord to make the world." Brief succeeding episodes, marked by blackouts for set shifts, are illustrative snapshots that mark the road to an abiding and compassionate friendship between the white Miss Daisy and her African American driver (“colored” in the parlance of the time). There is a poignant piece in a cemetery where Miss Daisy has brought flowers for one grave and asks Hoke to take another bouquet to a grave marked "Bower." He must confess he cannot read.

"Why, everybody can read," she fumes. "I taught children who were idiots to read. Anybody can read." She then sounds out the first and last letters of the Bower name. Hoke catches on, only slightly puzzled about the letters in between. In a later instance, when Hoke drives Miss Daisy to her son’s on Christmas, she gives him a book on penmanship. "Not a Christmas present," she insists. "Jews don’t give Christmas presents." Hoke accepts with "nobody ever gave me a book and thank you." News of violence marks another episode when Hoke reports to a stunned Miss Daisy that her synagogue has been bombed. "It’s the same people," he says, and recounts the horror at a young age of seeing the body of a lynched man hanging in a tree. The friendship journey of Miss Daisy and Hoke moves from prickliness to candor to respect and affection - often laced with laughter - as the years send them into their 90s. It is a bond that will endure until the end. Johnson burrows into the independent spirit of Miss Daisy with extraordinary skill and compassion as a woman who moves reluctantly from denial into the twilight of old age. West as Hoke matches her in professionalism and excellence and in a capacity to reach an audience without forensics. Clark is an expert at portraying the beleaguered Boolie, a sometimes impatient but loving son who recognizes the personal and business perils of changing times in the South. Cheers to Susan McCandless, not only for her fine directing skills for "Miss Daisy" but for an ability to package a new venue with a new presentation and come out with a successful show. Among advisories for first-time dinner theater-goers: Reservations are highly recommended and be there promptly at 5:30 p.m. when the doors open. Waitresses will come for drink orders from the bar for interested patrons (drinks or wine included with the three-course dinner). Dinner is served at 6 p.m. Expect a close to 8 p.m. curtain with time to shift chairs to face the stage. Relax and enjoy. "Miss Daisy" will run weekends through March 20 at Daffodils on Main Street with a Thursday performance March 18 and Sunday luncheon matinees at 12:30 p.m. Feb. 29 and March 14. For reservations, call Daffodils at 267-0242. Dinner/show prices are $37.50 and luncheons, $29.50.