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Driving Miss Daisy ~ The Little Theatre of Alexandria

Jordan Wright
September 12, 2017
Special to The Alexandria T
imes

Boolie (Joel Durgavich), Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) and Hoke ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak

Boolie (Joel Durgavich), Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) and Hoke (Kevin Sockwell) ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak

A talented, tightly knit cast of three deliver on Alfred Uhry’s heartwarming tale of Daisy Werthan, a well-heeled elderly Southern lady, Boolie Werthan, her successful son, and Hoke Colburn, her dutiful chauffeur.  The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, made into a film with Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, gave Tandy and the picture Academy Awards in 1989 and has been beloved by audiences ever since.

Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) and Hoke ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak

Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) and Hoke (Kevin Sockwell) ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak

Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) is the paragon of Southern respectability in the Jim Crow South.  Adhering to all its social restraints and mindful of her position as an upstanding member of her Jewish temple, she has both a girlish vulnerability and, alternatively, a stern demeanor from her days as a schoolteacher that could set your hair on fire.  Daisy hails from the bygone era of Southern ladies who ruled their households with an iron fist in a velvet glove and kept guard dog-like vigilance in fear their servants would steal behind their backs.  It is the true story of Uhry’s grandmother and the chauffeur she employed for over 25 years.

Set in Atlanta, Georgia in 1948 when ladies of means had drivers and fancy cars to shuttle them from their hairdressers to their places of worship – including the Piggly Wiggly, the legendary supermarket of the South – it opens to a scene with her concerned son Boolie (Joel Durgavich) after she has crashed her Packard due to her failing eyesight.  (Written in the late 80’s, Daisy at 72 is over the hill.  Hmm.)  Boolie, standing firm against her protestations, has decided her driving days are kaput and Hoke (Kevin Sockwell) is hired on as her chauffeur.

Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) and Hoke (Kevin Sockwell) ~Photographer: Matt Liptak

Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) and Hoke (Kevin Sockwell) ~Photographer: Matt Liptak

Director Jim Howard takes us seamlessly through a series of some twenty-eight tricky scene changes with the help of Lighting Designer Marzanne Claiborne who focuses attention on the evolving vignettes from 1948, a time when Jews and Blacks were second class citizens in the South, to 1973 Mobile, Alabama where, decades after they have formed an indestructible bond, Daisy invites Hoke to a dinner for Martin Luther King, Jr.  Setting the tone, vintage photos of the period and Daisy’s fading furniture are featured along with a “car” of sorts where the two converse on life’s puzzlements and injustices.  Shades of the Ku Klux Klan and their fiery reign of terror hover menacingly over both Daisy and Hoke’s life.   When Hoke relates a gruesome tale of lynching, Daisy is faced with the harsh reality that her life shares the same pain and uncertainty as Hoke’s.

But it is the humor and wisdom they impart that strengthens the bonds of their unusual friendship as well as the tender mercies they offer one another that make this tale so heartwarming while affording us a glimpse into the uneasy relationship between mistress and servant, Black and Jew, with charm, humor and poignancy.  Nuanced performances by Kratzer and Sockwell are indelible.

Recommended for its relevance to today’s struggles against the re-emerging political climate of hate and prejudice. Lest we forget.

Through October 15th at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe Street. For tickets and information call the box office at 703 683-0496 or visit www.thelittletheatre.com

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