Review: ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ gets an easy ride in World Stage production

When Miss Daisy Werthan sets out on a journey, whether it be across state lines to attend a family gathering, or across town to the Piggly Wiggly for groceries, she knows exactly the way to go, and just how fast one should drive to get there safely.

World Stage Theatre’s production of “Driving Miss Daisy,” Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, takes a lot of its cues from its title character’s philosophy about travel.

This story about a Southern Jewish woman of a certain age, and the slightly less-seasoned Black man hired to serve as her chauffeur, moves at a leisurely pace, and pauses at all the points of interest one would expect to encounter in a tale set in the Deep South during the mid-20th century.

But the play never lingers at any of these places. It only provides brief glimpses into these extremely fraught times and events, preferring to move along to safer, less volatile, more familiar places.

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The relationship between Daisy Werthan (Lisa Wilson) and Hoke Coleburn (Troy Knauls) begins when Miss Daisy wrecks her latest vehicle, and her son Boolie (Lawrence Moran) insists that she needs a driver, for her own safety and that of her fellow citizens of Atlanta.

For Miss Daisy, the situation means she is losing the control she has tried so carefully to maintain — over her own independence, over the sanctity of her home, over the way she wants to be viewed by those around her. Hoke’s presence behind the wheel is a constant reminder that she does, in fact, need other people in her life, even if her dealings with Hoke smack of a casual racism that Miss Daisy insists she does not possess.

“Driving Miss Daisy” is supposed to be a gentle, intimate story, but under director Paula Scheider’s guidance, this production is almost too gentle. The play’s episodic nature, and the way the passing of time from the 1940s to the 1970s is handled (you don’t get the sense of anyone aging or changing until the final minutes) makes the play seem like a loose collection of vignettes.

Wilson is suitably starchy as Miss Daisy, while Knauls portrays Hoke as exceptionally easy-going — there are moments throughout where Hoke could show a bit more flint, to strike some sparks from Wilson’s steel magnolia, but Knauls keeps things light. Moran’s Boolie is full of bluster and bonhomie, tempered with a more potent awareness of the taut social tightrope he must tread to be able to conduct his business in that time and place.

Scheider designed the set that Celeste Vaughns capably lit, and Ann Knode handled the show’s sound with aplomb.

“Driving Miss Daisy” continues with performances at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24; and 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25, at the Tulsa PAC, 110 E. Second St. For tickets: 918-596-7111, tulsapac.com.

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