Staging ‘Miss Daisy’

The film version of “Driving Miss Daisy” nearly swept the Oscars in 1989. Yet before that, it had already garnered some positive attention as a stage play.

That’s an understatement. This play won the Pulitzer Prize for playwright Alfred Uhry in 1988.

Beginning tonight, Interplayers will tackle this sensitive play about an elderly Jewish Southern woman, Daisy, and her black chauffeur, Hoke. The story covers 25 years of their often-prickly relationship, from about 1948 to 1973. By the end, both parties have mellowed.

Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman played these roles in the movie version, and Dana Ivey and Freeman played them off-Broadway.

Director Maynard Villers has cast two veteran Spokane actors in the lead roles: Alice Kennedy as Daisy and Clarence Forech as Hoke.

“The cast has been a delight,” said Villers. “I love this cast.”

Kennedy has long been one of Spokane’s top actresses, shining in numerous roles at the Spokane Civic Theatre, including the lead in Bryan Harnetiaux’s “Vesta.”

Forech, well-known as the popular proprietor of the downtown shoeshine stand at Nordstrom, played the role of Crooks in Interplayers’ “Of Mice and Men” in June. He also played Crooks at the now-defunct Valley Repertory Theatre in 1996.

Tony Caprile plays the only other role in this three-person play: Boolie, Daisy’s son. That’s a pivotal character in the story, yet the majority of the play consists of gentle, revealing exchanges between Daisy and Hoke.

“Mr. Uhry wisely refrains from melodramatic confrontation,” wrote New York Times critic Mel Gussow in 1987. “The play remains quiet, and it becomes disarming as it delineates the characters with almost offhand glimpses.”

Gussow went on to say that “the play is sweet without being mawkish, ameliorative without being sanctimonious.”

Villers said the play is short; it was written as a one-act, but will be presented here with an intermission. The set is minimalist, as Uhry originally intended.

“It was never meant to be realistic,” said Villers.

Yet “Driving Miss Daisy” was certainly intended to be realistic, in a historical and emotional sense. When Uhry won the Pulitzer, he mused on why this play struck such a chord with so many people.

“I guess it’s truth – and people want to hear the truth,” he told The New York Times. “I wrote a play about the South the way I remembered it. I didn’t know it at the time, but being Southern and Jewish is unique.”