In ‘Daisy,’ Michael Morman’s in the driver’s seat again
Michael Morman is putting on the chauffeur’s cap once again. But this time it feels different.
“We’re so used to saying ‘we’re not prejudiced’ because we don’t have the time to think about it,” Morman says. “Now, we’ve been given the time to really think.”
Morman will star as Hoke in “Driving Miss Daisy,” which opens Jan. 29 at Theater West End in Sanford. Alfred Uhry’s play was awarded the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for drama. It was then adapted into a hit film, starring Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy, which won the 1989 Oscar for best picture.
The story follows the developing relationship between a cantankerous Jewish woman and her soft-spoken Black chauffeur from the 1940s to the 1970s. Morman has played Hoke, the chauffeur, “seven or eight times” over the past 30 years or so.
It’s a role for which he has enormous affection, and a role in which he always finds new nuances in the context of current events.
“Each time it’s been an evolution,” Morman says.
“One of the times I did it was around Pulse. There was a connection of ‘Hate is still here.’ ”
The past year’s national
conversation about racial justice, with marches and protests following the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and other
Black Americans, has once again given new meaning to “Driving Miss Daisy.”
“I’ve said these words before, but I have a totally different visual in my head now,” Morman says of Hoke’s dialogue.
For director Tara Kromer, too, this production feels different.
“The material has taken on a much more thoughtful meaning for me,” she says.
Theater West End’s production will mark the third time Kromer has directed the play, each time with Morman as Hoke and Chad Lewis as Daisy’s son, Boolie. Eileen Antonescu rounds out the cast in the title role.
Kromer doesn’t typically return to the same play time and again, but the nation’s sociopolitical scene compelled her.
“Do I really want to take this up again?” she recalls pondering. “Yes, things are different now.”
Although the play is a comedy, with the reputation of “feel-good” entertainment, “it’s not quite as buttoned up and beautiful as we might think,” Kromer says.
Even toward play’s end, Daisy struggles to outgrow her upbringing.
“She’s still experiencing and communicating some underlying latent and racist tendencies,” Kromer says.
Morman hopes audience members will leave with
a renewed commitment to treating all people with fairness and compassion.
“Love each other, but wake up,” he says. “This has been going on generations. Stop already.”
He sees it this way: “If we can’t love each other, could we like each other? And if we can’t like each other, can we respect the fact we have differences? Just learn to respect everybody’s differences.”
Morman hopes he’ll play Hoke yet again.
“I identify with him, and he’s my friend,” Morman says. “I don’t want this to be the last time.”
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