F. Carl Brown, Juli Erickson and Don Long in "Driving Miss Daisy" at RTC. Photo by Lise Alexander.

  

Driving Miss Daisy

by Alfred Uhry

Presented by Richardson Theatre Centre

January 29 - February 21

at Richardson Theatre Centre
2701 N. Custer Parkway, Suite 911
Richardson, TX 75080
972-699-1130

$20-$22

7:30pm Thursdays; 8pm Fridays-Saturdays; 3pm Sundays
Runtime: 110 minutes

It's like old friends coming to visit. Kinfolk, actually. There's testy, but lovable Aunt Daisy. And Cousin Hoke and Cousin Boolie. The principals in Driving Miss Daisy are encamped for several weeks at the Richardson Theatre Center. Do yourself a favor and pay them a visit.

Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer winner was first staged in 1987, and the Oscar-winning movie version followed two years later. Clearly, Miss Daisy is aging gracefully. This comedy-drama about the unlikely bonding of a Jewish widow and her African-American chauffeur in the segregated American South has grown more poignant with the years.

It is 1948. Daisy Werthan, 72, has just demolished her Packard as well as her Atlanta neighbor's tool shed. The insurance company will replace the vehicle, but probably won't renew her policy. Her son, Boolie, lays down the law: He will hire a man to drive her.

The driver turns out to be Hoke Colburn, a black man in his 60s who is as skilled in the subtle politics of human relations as he is in operating a motor vehicle. ("Gearshift's like a third arm to me.'') Gradually, he wears down Daisy's objections. And as time passes (25 years, to be exact), these two persons from different worlds become best friends.

Director Rachael Lindley's success began with casting. There's even a bonus; but more about that later.

Miss Daisy can be a royal pain, and Juli Erickson isn't afraid to let that trait color her portrayal. Her sarcasm, directed at Daisy's socially ambitious daughter-in-law (an unseen character), is particularly rewarding. And her brief descent into dementia is a truly frightening episode.

F Carl Brown, known to Fort Worth audiences for an impressive body of work at Jubilee Theatre, wears the role of Hoke like a pair of comfy old slippers. (He has played the character before, at Hurst's Artisan Center Theater.) There's layer after layer of drama, emotion and humor here. And Brown gets it all.

Don Long has the savvy to make Boolie more than an ineffectual afterthought. But he makes you wait until the scene in which Boolie talks turkey, and business, as he explains the tricky slopes a Jewish businessman is obliged to negotiate in the Bible Belt.

The players' gradually halting gaits indicate the passing years, as do the costume selections of director Lindley. (Daisy's vintage fox fur collar is a wonderful touch, but where in blazes did Lindley dig it up?)

Now for the bonus. Playgoers will have the opportunity to see two Daisies in this production. Erickson will be absent Feb. 4-8, in order to attend the premiere of Carried Away, a much-anticipated film directed by Fort Worth native Tom Huckabee, who cast Erickson as a neglected nursing home resident rescued by her grandson. Dallas performers Liz Mikel and Morganna Shaw also appear in the film.

Stepping in for Erickson this week is Fradonna Griffin, whose performance last season as the crotchety Ouiser in Steel Magnolias may furnish a clue to her Daisy interpretation.