Theater Review – ‘Driving Miss Daisy”  Produced by: Theatre Three – Port Jefferson

Patrons of Long Island’s Theatre Three are being offered a rare treat thru February 1st; that’s when playwright Alfred Uhry’s bittersweet drama, based on the relationship between his elderly Jewish grandmother and herdevoted chauffeur, will ring down the show’s final curtain.  Those local theatergoers who have taken advantage of this delightful Linda  May-directed production will have experienced in DRIVING MISS DAISY legitimate theater at its very best. 

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With the supremely talented Phyllis March in the title role of DAISY WERTHAN, and veteran Antoine Jones playing her African-American driver, HOKE COLEBURN, the mainstage of Port Jefferson’s Theatre Three transports us to mid-twentieth century Atlanta. There the widowed septuagenarian, Daisy, finds it necessary to forfeit her driving license and rely on sixty-year-old Hoke to fulfill that mundane, if necessary, function. 

At first,  the formerly self-sufficient Daisy, and long-suffering Hoke are mutually standoffish, giving both actors ample opportunity to display their considerable thespian skills as the story progresses. It is the development of this unlikely relationship that moves the play, and won Uhry the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1988.

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Thereafter, many of the entertainment industry’s stage and film elite were cast in the production’s choice roles. They included, over time, such acting luminaries as Julie Harris, Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, Dan Ackroyd  Vanessa Redgrave, James Earl Jones, and Angela Lansbury. It is perhaps significant that while the show opened off-Broadway (at the intimate ‘Playwright’s Horizons’ studio theatre on 42nd Street) it nonetheless won the Academy Award for Best Picture when filmed. Tandy and  Freeman were also honored with Oscars by the Academy, as was Ackroyd in the supporting role of grandson BOOLIE WERTHAN. No other motion picture adaptation of an off-Broadway-pedigreed play had ever garnered such success. 

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The production made its Broadway stage debut in the fall of 2010 at the Golden Theatre where, to the surprise of no one, it promptly recouped its $2.6 million investment in record time. 

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I first met Phyllis March at the  funeral of our mutual friend, the actress Madeline Porter. I was immediately struck by the charm and sincerity of Ms. March and, convinced that she would one day land a blockbuster starring role at Theatre Three, vowed to keep a close eye opened for her. My  patient anticipation was rewarded last weekend when I discovered that not only was Phyllis quick to embrace the refined self-control that the audience expects from the widowed Daisy Werthan, March masterfully effected the smooth, lilting, Georgia accent that one hardly presumes the 72-year-old Jewish matron will possess. Whether that achievement is the result of Director Linda May’s insight, or March’s singular talent (or both), readers may be assured that the Atlanta drawl is certainly not New Yorker Phyllis’s normal off-stage inflection. 

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Not since watching Marci Bing’s wonderful interpretation of Maria Callas in MASTER CLASS has this reviewer been so spellbound by a stage performance. Ms. March owns the mainstage at Theatre Three as if born to it. Her timing is effortlessly exquisite, and she delivers her numerous lines with a combination of grace and elan. Indeed, March is the sort of actor whose command of the action and dialogue assigned to her, wins our hearts as surely as it ultimately captivates that of co-star Antoine Jones (chauffeur Hoke Coleburn).

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DRIVING MISS DAISY must have been a joy for the multi-talented Linda May to direct. Indeed, she (along with March, Jones, and Steve Ayle - a convincing ‘Boolie Werthan’), deserves all the stars in my kit. 

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It’s just too bad this theater gem isn’t scheduled for a couple of months’ run … instead of a few weeks. 

 

 

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