Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ opens at Manatee Performing Arts Center

It’s been described as a love story. It’s also been described as a microcosm of the evolution of civil rights in the mid-20th century south. It’s also been seen as a fictionalized memoir.

There are probably many other ways to look at it, depending on your mood and your motivation for going to theater.

Whatever way you choose to approach it, though, “Driving Miss Daisy” is pretty much impossible to dislike. It’s both simple and complex, intimate and sweeping.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Alfred Uhry is next up from Manatee Players. It opens Thursday in the Bradenton Kiwanis Theater at the Manatee Performing Arts Center.

The production reunites director Pamela Wiley and actor Lynne Doyle, who worked together in an excellent production of “Wit” in the same space last season.

“To me, this is a bit of a love story,” Wiley said. “And it was written with great love by Mr. Uhry, because it’s about his family.”

The story covers 25 years in the relationship between a Southern women and the African-American man her son hires to be her driver. It begins in 1948, and Daisy is unapologetically racist. The driver, Hoke, is used to such treatment and handles it with a mixture of dignity and occasional sarcasm. Over the next 25 years, which take Daisy and Hoke through the civil rights movements and even to the speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, their relationship and external events soften Daisy’s attitudes.

“She’s Jewish, and I think that’s very important to the story, that’s she’s Jewish,” Doyle said. “She’s reform, and when her temple is bombed, she can’t understand why anyone would bomb her temple instead of one of the strict temples.”

The play is small, with few characters and minimal sets, so it’s often produced by theaters around the country. (Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe in Sarasota staged it two years ago, with Taurean Blacque of “Hill Street Blues” fame playing Hoke). But more people have seen the film version, which starred Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman and, in a bizarre bit of casting, Canadian Catholic comedian Dan Aykroyd as Daisy’s Southern Jewish son Boolie.

The movie is pretty faithful to the play, but there are some significant differences.

“I think people will be surprised that there are only three characters,” Wiley said. “There’s just Daisy, Hoke and Boolie.”

The movie adds seven additional characters, including Daisy’s housekeeper and Boolie’s wife.

The play is part of Uhry’s Atlanta Trilogy, which all revolve around Jewish people in Atlanta, where Uhry grew up. The other two plays in the trilogy are “Last Night of Ballyhoo” and the musical “Parade.”

Details: Jan. 25-Feb. 11, Bradenton Kiwanis Theater at the Manatee Performing Arts Center, 502 Third Ave. W., Bradenton. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. $25. 941-748-5875, manateeperformingartscenter.com.

This story was originally published January 24, 2018 at 5:21 PM with the headline "Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ opens at Manatee Performing Arts Center."