Angela Lansbury in Driving Miss Daisy on PBS

[Steve C.]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 5:03pm

Driving Miss Daisy was on Great Performances on PBS last night. Any thoughts? This was from 2014 in Melbourne with James Earl Jones and Boyd Gaines. I think the performances gracefully helped this production. AL is peerless and even superior to the material. Am I wrong or does this play seem more dated than the first time around? I really wanted to like it and thought that JEJ and BG were also very good, but the play itself isn't the way I remembered it...

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 5:36pm

Sure, it's dated. But I think it's a lovely little look at history and deeply moving. I enjoyed the revival. I thought the simple, stark staging was gorgeous. But I couldn't warm to Vanessa Redgrave, no matter how terrific she is. Lansbury, however, is magnificent. 

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 5:48pm

I have to disagree with you. I was disappointed with this production, but having seen what I thought was a wonderful production of the play not quite two years ago, I am tempted to say the fault lies in this production and its performers. I could not believe Angela Lansbury as southern or Jewish, and I frequently had trouble understanding what James Earl Jones was saying. They played their scenes in a very slow, almost melodramatic manner that really didn't work for me. I was never able to connect with the characters. I was annoyed by the overuse of projections and the very slow transitions. I had high hopes for this production of what I think is still a wonderful play with two truly great actors, but I thought this was just evidence that even the best of us still slip up.

[followspot]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 9:50pm

I loathed this production when it was on Broadway, and I couldn't take more than 20 minutes of the otherwise wonderful Lansbury and Jones lumbering and mugging their way through it on the PBS broadcast.  Driving Miss Daisy is a gentle, Pulitzer Prize-winning piece of theatrical magic written for two actors in their 50s (aging before our eyes through acting alone — 25 years in 80 minutes) with set pieces and the passage of time beautifully left to the audience's imagination.  I hate to be one of those "You shoulda been there!" guys, but the original 1987 New York production with Dana Ivey (46 at the time) and Morgan Freeman (50) was breathtaking.  I have never seen finer, more moving performances, or a story told so simply, so beautifully.  The work in its original intended form became an instant classic, and deservedly so.  Nearly 30 years later, every director and his dog has had to have his or her "take" on what was originally elegant perfection, and Driving Miss Daisy is now, more often than not, seen in overblown, miscast, magic-free form.  As it was last night on PBS.

 

Updated On: 7/19/15 at 09:50 PM