Driving Miss Daisy

by Alfred Uhry

Book Overview

Racial tensions are delicately explored when a warm friendship evolves between an elderly Jewish woman and her black chauffeur. Winner of a 1988 Pulitzer Prize, and Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0930452895
• ISBN13: 9780930452896
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Driving Miss Daisy

This play came in fair condition and was exactly what I needed at the time. I even got a great price for it. Yea!

Strikes Gold

"Driving Miss Daisy" won the Pulitzer Prize and hooks you from the first speech. Miss Daisy is such a salty old lady who says exactly what she thinks without apology. I've seen Morgan Freeman's film performance as Hoke and can only imagine how good he must have been on stage in this character. Hoke who comes to be Miss Daisy's driver when she wrecks the car by backing into the neighbor's garage -- sideways -- is so calm. He never talks back to Miss Daisy, but he speaks his mind and then accepts whatever absurd opinion she presents. The theme seems to be most highlighted in the sequence when they are caught in a traffic jam and realize that the local synagogue which Miss Daisy attends has been bombed. We realize that both Jews and Blacks were targets of Southern hatred; and they then share a subtle but common bond which registers despite Daisy's denials. When Daisy becomes stricken with dementia as she imagines she must find graded papers for her students when she has long been retired, it results in her heading to the nursing home. As the play progresses in a series of scenes, the characters age, winding up with Daisy in a nursing home at age 97 visited by an 85 year-old Hoke who is driven to the visit by Daisy's son Boolie. The play ends with Hoke feeding Daisy a piece of pumpkin pie. "Driving Miss Daisy" is an excellent character piece. Alfred Uhry was about to give up writing when Daisy struck gold for him. It is an entrancing evening's entertainment both on the page and on the stage. Enjoy!

A Beautiful Play

"Driving Miss Daisy" is a play that shows how somebody can overcome their initial reactions towards a situation and how that situation changed their life forever. Thus is the story of Daisy,a Jewish woman living in Atlanta. Her son, Boolie, hires a chauffer to drive her around the city. Hoke, an african american man that Daisy wants to have no relation with, gets the job. Opening up in the 1950's and running all the way to 1975, this story tells of the growing friendship between Daisy and Hoke. For the first few years Daisy is embarassed to being driven around by a black man but they soon develop a lasting friendship that will last forever. "Driving Miss Daisy" tells one thing. It tells about changes in people. Daisy was a Jewish women who wanted absolutely no part with Hoke. Throughout the play Alfred Uhry is able to develop on each character from Daisy and Hoke, to the maid Idella, to Daisy's son Boolie, to Boolie's wife, and everybody else that appears. This is a very short play and Alfred Uhry had to have some skill to pull off the awesome character development in this. "Driving Miss Daisy" is a story of change in people and of true friendship. This play went on Broadway and became a movie. This play won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama and four Academy Awards for the movie. I recommend this play to anybody that would enjoy a touching story of two people that were everything but friends at first who became best friends for life. Pick this play up and you will appreciate this story and the friendship that is depicted in it.Happy Reading!

A ****½ play...

Made into the 1989 Best Picture-winning "Driving Miss Daisy", one sees that, when comparing the two, they are relatively the same. So, then, it's no wonder that it won Best Adapted Screenplay for that year as well. The play is warm, humane, funny, and one of the best you'll ever come across. I believe the terminology "short and sweet" applies to this play. Read it!