What is the “gap” between the front and rear seats? What can connect two people who are seemingly opposites? How hard is it for someone to see that in their old age, things no longer work as they do when they are young? How hard is it to accept that you need help? Can hardness, connoisseur be broken with a few kind words, gestures and honesty? These questions can be answered in Alfred Uhry’s play: Driving Miss Daisy, which can be seen at the Veres1Theatre directed by Daniel Dicső.
What the mood of the performance is like, I think, depends on who feels which part is more emphasized. For me, it’s a touching, thought-provoking play that, in addition to what it has to say, is amply plagued with humorous utterances, pranks that not only the audience laughs at, but the actors also smile at.
The story is short: Boolie hires a driver next to her retired mother because the old lady is already driving insecurely. Miss Daisy doesn’t support the idea, but Hoke still gets to work. The piece tells the story of the two of them spanning several decades, from stuttering beginnings to endless friendships. The two different people are from two different worlds. Or not?
The performance is not overdone. The simple, frill-free set expresses everything needed to visualize the venues. At first, it was a surprising element of the car’s scenery, but it’s very imaginative and fits the scene perfectly. Thanks to the rotation, the scenes and locations are completely separated from each other. Although the rotator was still manually moved, it wasn’t distracting to the performance. And the passage of years is not only evident from the text, but can also be noticed in the characters. So the theater team managed to put together an act of an hour and a half that provides a pleasant evening of relaxation. I really liked it.
The lesson of the piece for me is: don’t judge first, get to know the other person, because often not everything is what it seems. Maybe it turns out we have more in common than we think. With attention and honesty, a lot can be achieved.
Actors:
Daisy Werthan - Márta Egri Jászai Mari Prize winner
Hoke Coleburn - Artúr Kálid
Boolie Werthan - Tamás Pál
Creators:
Help: Ádám Dorottya
Assistant director: Zsófia Kelemen
Set designer: Rita Vereckei
Costume designer: Piroska Huszár, Enikő Zorgel
Music: László Nyitrai
Playwright: Sándor Venyige
Translation: Veronika Páli
Director: Dániel Dicső
The pictures are the property of Veres1Theater.
