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Saturday, November 16, 2002

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

Pittsburgh Public Theater has rarely done a play so small and simple and done it so well as this revival of Alfred Uhry's "Driving Miss Daisy." Whether this is the best way for the Public to spend one-sixth of its performing year -- I don't think it is -- there is no faulting its quality.

	Rosemary Prinz and Roger Robinson star in "Driving Miss Daisy." (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette) "Driving Miss Daisy" WHERE: Pittsburgh Public Theater at O'Reilly Theater, 621 Penn Ave., Downtown. WHEN: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays; some variations; through Dec. 8. TICKETS: $12 to $46; 412-316-1600.

Those three things are causally connected, of course: Small and simple are both easier to do well. And yet there is plenty of opportunity in "Miss Daisy" for a fulsome tone or sentimental indulgence to mar the delicate texture. That this never happens is to the credit of caring director Pamela Berlin and her two uncompromising stars, Rosemary Prinz and Roger Robinson.

Prinz plays the wiry, acerbic Daisy Werthan, a well-to-do Jewish widow who is 72 when we meet her in 1948 Atlanta and nearly 100 when we say good-bye, 25 years later. Her husband prospered in the family printing business, but she's independent and proud of having grown up poor, so when a car accident cancels her insurance, she refuses to hire a chauffeur. But her son insists, hiring Hoke Colburn, a colored man (as they said then) about 10 years younger than Daisy.

So begins the relationship between the suspicious, birdlike Daisy and the canny, warmhearted Hoke. Daisy's resistance slowly mellows, and the unfolding of the two characters is the substance of the play.

The prejudice that separates wealthy Atlanta Jews and Christians provides an important context, as it also does in playwright Uhry's "The Last Night of Ballyhoo" and the book for the musical "Parade." Daisy is tart about Jews assimilating (playing up to Episcopalians or celebrating Christmas), and she scorns putting on airs. Hoke also lives on one side of a divide, that between black and white, at a time when Atlanta is confronting the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King Jr.

Daisy has to learn to discard her unthinking if modest prejudice. Hoke has his own touch of prejudice, but like Daisy, he's a model of personal integrity. She makes more of a journey, however; the failure to provide Hoke with an equivalent journey is a small flaw, leaving him a shade too noble for real drama.

But both characters compel belief, and Prinz and Robinson bring them to vivid life, as the play requires because they are what it has to offer.

The indispensable third actor is Jay Patterson, playing Boolie, Daisy's son. He feels just as lived-in as do they, and all three are particularly successful at suggesting the passage of time through the simple magic of unadorned acting.

Michael Schweikardt's set is even less adorned than that, free of detail for detail's sake.

In 83 minutes, "Miss Daisy" bites off very little but chews it thoroughly. Uhry has a fine ear for regional speech. As the conventional mistress-servant relationship deepens, the characters of these elderly opposites develop sweet acceptance. It's an appropriate entertainment for a family holiday like Thanksgiving.

Still, it does not deny the attraction of this charming little play nor the care and skill with which it is produced to wonder what it is doing on the Public's schedule. You don't maintain an elaborate, sophisticated machine of the capacity and complexity of the Pittsburgh Public Theater in order to stage small, familiar works.

The same objection pertains to last spring's even slighter "Fully Committed," but that was at least new. "Miss Daisy" has been around a lot, and it can't claim to have fresh layers to reveal in repeated viewings.

Of course, there is always a first-time audience. And it could be argued that it takes a company of this level to do "Miss Daisy" so well. But is the gain commensurate with the expense? The Pittsburgh Symphony could do a great job with an evening of folk music, but is that how it should be used?

Doubtless there are also institutional imperatives. Perhaps the company needs to rest and regroup after the exertion of a big play like "Much Ado About Nothing." The accumulated deficit probably mandated a small play. If the company requires our indulgence, fine, but indulgence is what this demands.