Don't miss this year's hottest theatre tickets as two of the world's greatest living actors, Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones arrive in London to perform Alfred Uhry's timeless Pulitzer Prize-winning classic Driving Miss Daisy at the Wyndhams Theatre.
Atlanta, Georgia 1948. Daisy Werthan (Vanessa Redgrave) is a rich middle-class lady of 72, widowed and doing the usual things - bridge, Temple, shopping and driving...into lampposts. Enter Hoke (James Earl Jones), a retired Black worker from the Werthan family factory. It's his job to drive Miss Daisy wherever she wants to go. Daisy and Hoke are a little bit old to be starting a journey together. Where will they end up...?
Spanning 25 years and evoking memories of the Deep South in the 50s and 60s, Driving Miss Daisy was adapted for the screen in 1989, winning Oscars for Best Film, Best Actress (Jessica Tandy) and Best Screenplay.
David Esbjornson's acclaimed, smash-hit production of Driving Miss Daisy has dazzled audiences and critics alike on Broadway.
Vanessa Redgrave's last London stage outing was The Year of Magical Thinking, the National Theatre's staging of Joan Didion's memoir, directed by David Hare. The one-woman play transferred to the NT Lyttelton in 2008 following a 2007 Broadway run.
James Earl Jones was last seen in the West End last year as Big Daddy in an all-African-American production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The Whatsonstage.com Award-winning production opened in December 2009 at the Novello Theatre
Sparklingly funny, irresistibly heart-warming and with an unmissable stellar cast, this is the must-see show of 2011 so book your Driving Miss Daisy tickets for this extremely limited season now!
James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy. Photo: Carol Rosegg
Date: 6 October 2011
Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play Driving Miss Daisy opened to critics last night at the West End's Wyndham's Theatre (5 October 2011, previews from 26 September 2011).
Set in Atlanta, Georgia in 1948, 72-year-old Daisy Werthan (Vanessa Redgrave) has her active social life threatened by her terrible driving. Hoke (James Earl Jones), a retired black worker from the Werthan family factory, is hired to drive her wherever she wants to go, and they begin an unexpected adventure in the deep south.
"This Broadway production, which I saw in New York last year, does nothing much to convince you that the crumbling hip generation of the late 1950s and early 1960s presaged a change in society for the better ... The play proceeds by numbers, each scene ticking off a point but not quite clinching it; it lacks heart and it lacks soul, always did, even in the superior West End production of 1988 starring Wendy Hiller and Clarke Peters ... Redgrave has some great moments ... and she almost solves the play’s gratuitous time leaps (from 1954 to 1972) by suddenly hunching her shoulders and developing arthritic arm movements ... The play ends with an act of squirm-inducing kindness, Redgrave in a wheelchair gawping like a beached dolphin, you steel yourself for an embarrassing curtain call ... This is 'event' theatre without a happening, 'masterpiece' culture without a beating heart, and the sort of sentimental old-fashioned fare that is liable to get routine jukebox musicals, in comparison, a good name."
"The presence of Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones in this Broadway transfer proves the alchemy of acting can have a magical effect ... Redgrave, in particular, demonstrates her consummate artistry ... There's a piece of pure Redgrave poetry when, learning that her accusation that Hoke has pinched a tin of salmon is totally groundless, she scoops up a trashcan with a fluid balletic movement as if to suggest that her airy insouciance could act as a form of exculpation. Redgrave also evokes beautifully the gradual declension into old age. Her head slowly sinks into her shoulders, her movements acquire an arthritic carefulness ... It is a superb piece of acting artfully matched by that of Jones. What he brings out is the quiet dignity of a man who has survived life's humiliations but knows his own worth ... Ably supported by Boyd Gaines as Miss Daisy's son and unobtrusively directed by David Esbjornson, the two star actors lend Uhry's tenuous play a transforming weight and substance."
"James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave are the sort of actors whose experience and craft recall an age when theatres seemed to be full of starry veterans working their magic, and in this slight yet satisfying piece they combine to poignant effect ... Redgrave suggests the imperiousness of Miss Daisy without overstating it ... Especially the way she discovers prejudices in herself that she had reached her seventies without recognising. She's also funny, as when she poses like Zorro to challenge Hoke about a can of salmon she thinks he has stolen. Yet it's Earl Jones who will last longer in the memory. He invests Hoke with a calm and dignity that feel, paradoxically, both modest and magnificent. Whenever he says 'Yes'm' (as he does a lot) this condensed utterance seems pregnant with a deeply knowing humanity. The production may be too sepia-toned, and the episodic storytelling will strike some as very spare, but this is a graceful and quietly potent drama."
"Miss Redgrave takes a while to reach full revs. Her hands shake. There are occasional pauses when you wonder if she has forgotten her lines. Is she gabbling? Or are these details of brilliant acting to convey Miss Daisy’s age? Let us be charitable and assume so. There are no doubts about Mr Jones. From the start he is delicious. Some English ears make take a minute to pick up his echoey Southern accent – all breathy vowels, consonants as rare as cubes of ham in pea soup – but his vocal delivery is only a small part of his performance ... There is a beauty in Hoke’s gentleness to Miss Daisy once her resistence has melted. Occasional music helps to transport us through changes of decade (the story ends in the early 1970s). The staging is understated – more understated, it has to be said, than the ticket prices. Instead of a car there is just a steering wheel and a clunk of doors. This is a pleasing evening of bespoke acting, particularly from Mr Jones. Restrained, redeeming. Worth catching.""
Libby Purves The Times ★★★★
"He’s James Earl Jones, born in 1930s Mississippi, of an age to remember Martin Luther King and live to see Obama. The actor himself is an event, a testimony. Here, deploying twinkling understatement and powerful warmth as he “wrastles” his cantankerous lady passenger, he is a memory to treasure ... And there is subtle perennial truth in the interplay of two immigrant races: Jews established and affluent, but still nervous of their position, blacks struggling below ... And Miss Daisy? Ah, that square Redgrave face, those burning blue eyes, that gawky unpredictability, that majestic indiscipline! ... Both principals age very movingly, Redgrave unforgettably occupying the final wheelchair with blue eyes flashing above a toothless cackle as her elderly cavalier feeds her. It’s the first time I’ve heard a round of applause for just a mouth being opened."
"Vanessa Redgrave is at her absolute best opposite James Earl Jones ... Last night however, I was amused, gripped and often deeply moved by the piece. This certainly has much to do with the calibre of the performers. Vanessa Redgrave is at her absolute best in this production — steely, witty, eccentric and with moments of deep feeling as the opinionated, grouchy and increasingly frail retired Jewish school teacher, Daisy Werthan. And the great American actor James Earl Jones is every bit as fine as her patient, kind and long-suffering black chauffeur, Hoke Colburn. Watching these two, you are left in no doubt that you are witnessing acting of greatness. Their developing relationship is caught with detail, depth and persuasive emotional truth."
It is fairly wonderful to see Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones as the warring stereotypes of a Southern Jewish matriarch and her illiterate black chauffeur in Alfred Uhry’s sentimental 1987 comedy, since filmed with Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman in those roles.
But this Broadway production, which I saw in New York last year, does nothing much to convince you that the crumbling hip generation of the late 1950s and early 1960s presaged a change in society for the better; so they chuck in footage of Martin Luther King on a civil rights march and a quick recorded chorus of “we shall overcome some day”.
The play proceeds by numbers, each scene ticking off a point but not quite clinching it; it lacks heart and it lacks soul, always did, even in the superior West End production of 1988 starring Wendy Hiller and Clarke Peters. Daisy’s son, businessman Boolie - nicely done here, as on Broadway, by Boyd Gaines - insists on giving his mother a black chauffeur after she’s pranged the car.
Redgrave has some great moments, as when she’s forced to revise her melodramatic accusation of a tin of salmon heist into a graceful withdrawal, as if fluently granting the point without conceding it; and she almost solves the play’s gratuitous time leaps (from 1954 to 1972) by suddenly hunching her shoulders and developing arthritic arm movements.
But as white momma and black servant find common ground, in a most simplistic fashion, and the play ends with an act of squirm-inducing kindness, Redgrave in a wheelchair gawping like a beached dolphin, you steel yourself for an embarrassing curtain call.
This play has won Tonys, Oscars and the Pulitzer Prize. So what do I know? David Esbjornson’s direction is tidy, John Lee Beatty’s scenic design of a shifting, deliquescent Georgia efficient enough, even though it’s ruined with those projections, and the bemusing soundtrack quotes from Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
Too many cooks may spoil this broth, with some 19 producers listed above the title. This is “event” theatre without a happening, “masterpiece” culture without a beating heart, and the sort of sentimental old-fashioned fare that is liable to get routine jukebox musicals, in comparison, a good name.
Humourous performances by all three cast members which examines the issues of friendship, age and tolerance without ramming the message down the audience's throat. The theatrical version of a warm and comfy winter cardigan. Fantastic. - Rob
28 Nov 11
It was an entertaining evening out but I was not enthralled or especially impressed. Ms Redgrave was an engaging Miss Daisy and Mr Jones was, I must say, a fabulous Hoke, but I struggled with Ms Redgrave's American accent (or maybe she did?) and at times I must admit I couldn't quite disentangle Mr Jones's mumbling, artful though it was. The seats we had were not fantastic and if I went again I would NOT sit in the Grand Circle! Maybe I can just blame the angle of view for everything. - Isobel
11 Nov 11
Although Driving Miss Daisy won a Pulitzer Prize for Alfred Uhry and the film version won Oscars, it's a surprisingly pedestrian play, if you'll excuse the pun. The warmth of the relationship between the cantankerous Miss Daisy and Hoke, her deferential but dignified chauffeur, unfolds gently with little in the way of action to enliven things. Even at 85 minutes it can seem overlong so it needs exceptional performances to highlight the small moments. Fortunately this Broadway transfer does not disappoint. Vanessa Redgrave superbly suggests Daisy's gradual loss of faculties and increasing reliance on Hoke and James Earl Jones makes it clear that behind Hoke's "Yes'm" deference there is a man with a very definite sense of his own position and worth. Boyd Gaines does not seem to have received the same accolades but he is terrific as Daisy's son and provides the one incendiary moment when he explains why a Georgia Jew could not be seen attending a rally for Martin Luther King lest he become a victim of Southern anti-semitism and racism. The play closes with remarkable scenes of tenderness between Daisy and her finally acknowledged best friend Hoke but is then followed by a rather odd but distinctly American curtain call. Driving Miss Daisy is a fairly ordinary play elevated by a remarkable cast. - David Baxter
10 Nov 11
I have not seen it here in London as I saw it last October in New York with the same leads and I felt it was superb. Both Miss Redgrave and Mr Jones give great and polished performances. It is a heart warming story and well executed on stage. - Joe Spiteri
20 Oct 11
Once again a WoS review I don't agree with at all and apparently I am not the only one as people far more prestigious than my humble self found this play heartwarming and very well acted. I saw it when Ms Redgrave was off, but the understudy was really good, although she did not render the ageing bit too well. Boyd Gaines does not get enough mentions because of the two other big stars of the play, but he was just amazing. As for Mr Earl Jones, what I can say? I hope I get to his age having still his enthusiasm for my job. A small jewel, not to be missed. - Reddie45
13 Oct 11
That review is all thinking, no feeling. So the play's simple, but beautifully so. Aging and friendship are simple concepts, but the former happens to all of us, and the latter offers just about the only solace. James Earl Jones has funny bones, inspiring confidence in the audience that he will deliver his lines perfectly in the way the best stand-ups do. With him, you never squirm fearfully that he will deliver a funny line any less than perfectly. And Vanessa Redgrave uses her eyes so incredibly expressively. As they age (Redgrave uses her body in such a way that you really believe she is getting older) and become friends, I found myself very touched, and I don't think it's because I'm overly sentimental. This is one of the best double acts of the year. - Steve
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