PROVIDENCE
Driving Miss Daisy is in good hands with Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, who steers the play to a touching conclusion.
The production opened Thursday at the Jewish Community Center and continues tonight through Nov. 23. It's a collaboration between amateurs and professionals, and between the Jewish Theatre Ensemble of Rhode Island and the new and ethnically diverse Mixed Magic Theatre.
Race is central to the story; so is Judaism. So this theatrical union seems fitting.
The cast is just three characters: Miss Daisy, a wealthy widowed Jewish woman, played by Joan Dillenback; Boolie, her businessman son, played by D. Toby Marwil; and Hoke, the black man Boolie hires to chauffeur his mother, played by Pitts-Wiley.
Overall the acting is good. And in the case of Pitts-Wiley, it's superb. Through understatement and subtly of tone and expression he makes his acting feel real.
Dillenback is convincing as a curmudgeon and Marwil is fine as a patronizing son. But Pitts-Wiley is exceptional as a modest, uneducated, but dignified Southern black man during the era of the Civil Rights Movement.
Hoke doesn't say "store," but "sto"; not "more" but "mo"; and generally makes little use of verbs: "What yo plans today?" But what the character lacks in polish, he makes up in principles -- of honesty, integrity and basic humanity.
The one hour and 45-minute production, which Pitts-Wiley directs, covers 25 years, 1948 to 1973, and takes place in Atlanta, Ga. Alfred Uhry wrote the play in 1986, but most people are probably more familiar with the 1989 movie adaptation starring Jessica Tandy, Dan Akroyd and Morgan Freeman.
However, the play has humor the movie lacks. Simple sets can do that. There's no car in this production; just three chairs, some hand movements and your imagination. Through gesture, make-believe windows are rolled down, doors are opened and a steering wheel is turned.
Most of the show is performed on one of three spare on-stage sets that are rolled into prominence: a desk is an office, two cushioned chairs are a living room and three wooden chairs arranged one in front of two are a car.
That's sufficient. This play is not about props, but relationships, explored through conversation. Miss Daisy and Hoke are opposites. She's educated; he's not. He's sociable; she isn't. But both know bigotry, which creates a bond between them.
In one scene, a temple is bombed, which Miss Daisy tries to dismiss, much to the amusement of the mostly Jewish audience.
"It's a mistake. I'm sure they meant to bomb one of the conservative synagogues or the orthodox one. The temple is reform. Everyone knows that."
Hoke isn't educated, but he's bright.
"It don't matter to them people. A Jew is a Jew to them folks. Jes' like light or dark we all the same nigger."
Over the course of time, we see the three actors age, Boolie from 40 to 65, Hoke from 60 to 85 and Miss Daisy from 72 to 97. Their hair greys and their eyesight fades, as suggested by eyeglasses.
But most notable over time, we see the softening of Miss Daisy. This woman who initially resisted having Hoke, refused his assistance, falsely accused him of stealing and heckled him with her consummate backseat driving, shows a growing attachment to him. She helps him to read, invites him to a banquet, although she doesn't do so directly, and ultimately declares, after many, many years, "Hoke, you're my best friend."
The line, like the play, may seem sentimental, but it's actually quite moving.
Driving Miss Daisy runs through Nov. 23 at the Jewish Community Center, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence. Show times are Thursday at 7 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. A panel discussion with playwright Alfred Uhry and Brown University education professor Fayneese Miller follows the Nov. 20 performance. For tickets, which are $12 and $10 for seniors and children, call 861-8800, voice mail 189.
