Stalling Out on Broadway
The question throbbing against my skull as I left the dull Broadway revival of Driving Miss Daisy was this: Can a performer give a fully realized performance in a two-dimensional role? I never really thought about it before, but Vanessa Redgrave is the kind of actress to raise such questions.
The haughty Redgrave, last seen on Broadway in The Year of Magical Thinking, would seem an unlikely fit for Alfred Uhrys beloved, dramaturgically challenged play (Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding). But she turns the elderly, Jewish Daisy Werthan into a living, breathing woman, something that seems impossible if you simply listen to Uhrys dialogueparticularly during director David Esbjornsons particularly hokey production.
The genteel Daisy, you see, is a terror behind the wheel. So her well-meaning son Boolie (Boyd Gaines) hires the equally elderly, African-American Hoke (James Earl Jones) to chauffeur her. Why Boolie chose a man in his seventies is never really explained, other than that Hoke once worked for a friend of his fathers. But this is the 1940s, so Hoke and Daisy are equally outsiders in Atlantas Southern hierarchy; a point Esbjornson goes out of his way to hammer home. During a road trip with Daisy and Hoke, highway signs like Jesus Saves and This is KKK Country flash above the stage.
The whole play has that same well-meaning heavy-handedness, from Hoke commiserating with Daisy over the bombing of her temple by recalling lynchings, to Daisys ladylike insistence that she harbors no prejudice, even as she refers to them and accuses Hoke of stealing from her. Set in a different time, with characters just slightly younger, and the push-pull of Daisy and Hokes relationship would have the makings of a rom-com. But even in Uhrys Arent these battling old people cute? script, nothing prepares us for James Earl Jones sloppy performance.
The famous voice is as slurry and rushed as the Mississippi, leaving most of the dialogue an unintelligible mishmash. Even worse, Jones seems to be giving a minstrel performance; my companion asked in a whisper when he would start shuckin and jivin. The episodic script, which cuts to another scene just as things promise to get interesting, already feels thin and forced when spread out on a Broadway stage; Jones loud, obvious performance just adds another layer of WTF? to the proceedings.
But theres always Redgrave, with an impeccable Southern accent, to keep the sentimental proceedings somewhat in check. Alas, even she fails us in the plays final moments, when Daisys son relegates her to an old folks home. Then, all of Redgraves technique deserts her, and she turns into a cartoon of an aged woman, the Granny Clampett of Broadway, jutting out her jaw in imitation of someone missing her teeth.
There will always be those people who respond to the coarse emotional manipulation of Uhrys script, with its built-in tear-jerking moments. But for once, knowing that they dont write em like they used to is a relief.
Driving Miss Daisy
Through Jan. 29, 2011, Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 212239-6200; $66.50-$131.50