Alfred Uhry - Driving Miss Daisy Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Preface

  CHARACTERS

  Copyright Page

  For Mama and Will

  R.I.P.

  Preface to the New Edition

  By Alfred Uhry

  In 1985 I wrote a three-character play about my childhood in Atlanta, Georgia. Playwriting 101 says write what you know and that’s what I did. The play was scheduled to run for five weeks in a seventy-four-seat theatre on the far west side of Manhattan. I figured that would be the end of it, because I had written very specifically about time and place. I was afraid that most people wouldn’t relate to it. Driving Miss Daisy ran for three years Off-Broadway and has been performed in more languages than I can count, in theatres all over the world, and it was made into an Oscar-winning movie. I guess I was wrong about it’s appeal.

  Flash forward twenty-five years. The play has come to Broadway for the first time, starring James Earl Jones, Vanessa Redgrave and Boyd Gaines (not bad). In those twenty-five years a lot has happened. We have been engaged in three wars, suffered an attack on our own soil, and elected an African-American president. So is the play I wrote about Atlanta all those years ago still relevant?

  Sadly, it is. There’s an exchange between Miss Daisy and her chauffeur, Hoke Coleburn, in one of the latter scenes. She says, “Isn’t it wonderful the way things are changing?” and he answers, “Things changing, but they ain’t change all that much.” Even with all the advances we have made, in this country there is still deep and bitter prejudice in the hearts of many. Our labels—Jew, African-American, Muslim, etc.—override who we are for far too many of us.

  Each of the characters in my play learns to look beneath the surface and find the humanity beneath the skin. One way or another, I think we all want the same thing—the opportunity to live the way we want to live and do what we want to do. Maybe it’s not that simple, but I like to think it is. And if spending time with Miss Daisy and Hoke and Boolie pushes anybody in that direction, I’ll be a happy man.

  October 2010

  New York

  CHARACTERS

  DAISY WERTHAN A WIDOW (AGE 72-97)

  HOKE COLEBURN HER CHAUFFEUR (AGE 60-85)

  BOOLIE WERTHAN HER SON (AGE 40-65)

  TIME AND PLACE

  THIS PLAY TAKES PLACE FROM 1948 TO 1973, MOSTLY IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA. THERE ARE MANY LOCALES. THE SCENERY IS MEANT TO BE SIMPLE AND EVOCATIVE. THE ACTION SHIFTS FREQUENTLY AND, I HOPE, FLUIDLY.

  In the dark we hear Daisy call from offstage: “Idella, I’m gone to market.” A car ignition is turned on; then we hear a horrible crash, followed by bangs and booms and wood splintering. The very loud noise stops suddenly and the lights come up on Daisy Werthan’s living room. Daisy, age seventy-two, is wearing a summer dress and high-heeled shoes. Her hair, her clothes, her walk, everything about her suggests bristle and feistiness and high energy. She appears to be in excellent health. Her son, Boolie Werthan, forty, is a businessman, Junior Chamber of Commerce style. He has a strong, capable air. The Werthans are Jewish, but they have strong Atlanta accents.

  DAISY: No!

  BOOLIE: Mama!

  DAISY: No!

  BOOLIE: Mama!

  DAISY: I said no, Boolie, and that’s the end of it.

  BOOLIE: It’s a miracle you’re not laying in Emory Hospital—or decked out at the funeral home. Look at you! You didn’t even break your glasses.

  DAISY: It was the car’s fault.

  BOOLIE: Mama, the car didn’t just back over the driveway and land on the Pollard’s garage all by itself. You had it in the wrong gear.

  DAISY: I did not!

  BOOLIE: You put it in reverse instead of drive. The police report shows that.

  DAISY: You should have let me keep my La Salle.

  BOOLIE: Your La Salle was eight years old.

  DAISY: I don’t care. It never would have behaved this way. And you know it.

  BOOLIE: Mama, cars don’t behave. They are behaved upon. The fact is you, all by yourself, demolished that Packard.

  DAISY: Think what you want. I know the truth.

  BOOLIE: The truth is you shouldn’t be allowed to drive a car anymore.

  DAISY: No.

  BOOLIE: Mama, we are just going to have to hire somebody to drive you.

  DAISY: No we are not. This is my business.

  BOOLIE: Your insurance policy is written so that they are going to have to give you a brand-new car.

  DAISY: Not another Packard, I hope.

  BOOLIE: Lord Almighty! Don’t you see what I’m saying?

  DAISY: Quit talking so ugly to your mother.

  BOOLIE: Mama, you are seventy-two years old and you just cost the insurance company twenty-seven hundred dollars. You are a terrible risk. Nobody is going to issue you a policy after this.

  DAISY: You’re just saying that to be hateful.

  BOOLIE: Okay. Yes. Yes I am. I’m making it all up. Every insurance company in America is lined up in the driveway waving their fountain pens and falling all over themselves to get you to sign on. Everybody wants Daisy Werthan, the only woman in the history of driving to demolish a three-week-old Packard, a two-car garage and a freestanding tool shed in one fell swoop!

  DAISY: You talk so foolish sometimes, Boolie.

  BOOLIE: And even if you could get a policy somewhere, it wouldn’t be safe. I’d worry all the time. Look at how many of your friends have men to drive them. Miss Ida Jacobs, Miss Ethel Hess, Aunt Nonie—

  DAISY: They’re all rich.

  BOOLIE: Daddy left you plenty enough for this. I’ll do the interviewing at the plant. Oscar in the freight elevator knows every colored man in Atlanta worth talking about. I’m sure in two weeks’ time I can find you somebody perfectly—

  DAISY: No!

  BOOLIE: You won’t even have to do anything, Mama. I told you. I’ll do all the interviewing, all the reference checking, all the—

  DAISY: No. Now stop running your mouth! I am seventy-two years old as you so gallantly reminded me and I am a widow, but unless they rewrote the Constitution and didn’t tell me, I still have rights. And one of my rights is the right to invite who I want—not who you wane—into my house. You do accept the fact that this is my house? What I do not want—and absolutely will not have is some—(she gropes for a bad-enough word) some chauffeur sitting in my kitchen, gobbling my food, running up my phone bill. Oh, I hate all that in my house!

  BOOLIE: You have Idella.

  DAISY: Idella is different. She’s been coming to me three times a week since you were in the eighth grade and we know how to stay out of each other’s way. And even so there are nicks and chips in most of my wedding china and I’ve seen her throw silver forks in the garbage more than once.

  BOOLIE: Do you think Idella has a vendetta against your silverware?

  DAISY: Stop being sassy. You know what I mean. I was brought up to do for myself. On Forsyth Street we couldn’t afford them and we did for ourselves. That’s still the best way, if you ask me.

  BOOLIE: Them! You sound like Governor Talmadge.

  DAISY: Why, Boolie! What a thing to say! I’m not prejudiced! Aren’t you ashamed?

  BOOLIE: I’ve got to go home. Florine’ll be having a fit.

  DAISY: Y’all must have plans tonight.

  BOOLIE: Going to the Ansleys for a dinner party.

  DAISY: I see.

  BOOLIE: You see what?

  DAISY: The Ansleys. I’m sure Florine bought another new dress. This is her idea of heaven on earth, isn’t it?

  BOOLIE: What?

  DAISY: Socializing with Episcopalians.

  BOOLIE: You’re a doodle, Mama. I guess Aunt
Nonie can run you anywhere you need to go for the time being.

  DAISY: I’ll be fine.

  BOOLIE: I’ll stop by tomorrow evening.

  DAISY: How do you know I’ll be here? I’m certainly not dependent on you for company.

  BOOLIE: Fine. I’ll call first. And I still intend to interview colored men.

  DAISY: No!

  BOOLIE: Mama!

  DAISY (Singing to end discussion):After the ball is over

  After the break of morn

  After the dancers leaving

  After the stars are gone

  Many a heart is aching

  If you could read them all—

  Lights fade on Daisy as she sings and come up on Boolie at the Werthan Company. He sits at a desk piled with papers, and speaks into an intercom.

  BOOLIE: Okay, Miss McClatchey. Send him on in.

  Boolie continues working at his desk. Hoke Coleburn enters, a black man of about sixty, dressed in a somewhat shiny suit and carrying a fedora, a man clearly down on his luck but anxious to keep up appearances.

  Yes, Hoke isn’t it?

  HOKE: Yassuh. Hoke Coleburn.

  BOOLIE: Have a seat there. I’ve got to sign these letters. I don’t want Miss McClatchey fussing at me.

  HOKE: Keep right on with it. I got all the time in the worl’.

  BOOLIE: I see. How long you been out of work?

  HOKE: Since back befo’ las’ November.

  BOOLIE: Long time.

  HOKE: Well, Mist’ Werthan, you try bein’ me and looking for work. They hirin’ young if they hirin’ colored, an’ they ain’ even hirin’ much young, seems like. (Boolie is involved with his paperwork) Mist’ Werthan? Y’ll people Jewish, ain’ you?

  BOOLIE: Yes we are. Why do you ask?

  HOKE: I’d druther drive for Jews. People always talkin’’bout they stingy and they cheap, but doan’ say none of that roun’ me.

  BOOLIE: Good to know you feel that way. Now, tell me where you worked before.

  HOKE: Yassuh. That what I’m gettin’ at. One time I workin’ for this woman over near Little Five Points. What was that woman’s name? I forget. Anyway, she president of the Ladies Auxiliary over yonder to the Ponce De Leon Baptist Church and seem like she always bringing up God and Jesus and do unto others. You know what I’m talkin’ ’bout?

  BOOLIE: I’m not sure. Go on.

  HOKE: Well, one day, Mist’ Werthan, one day that woman say to me, she say “Hoke, come on back in the back wid me. I got something for you.” And we go on back yonder and, Lawd have mercy, she have all these old shirts and collars be on the bed, yellow, you know, and nasty like they been stuck off in a chifferobe and forgot about. Thass right. And she say “Ain’ they nice? They b’long to my daddy befo’ he pass and we fixin’ to sell ’em to you for twenty-five cent apiece.”

  BOOLIE: What was her name?

  HOKE: Thass what I’m thinkin’. What was that woman’s name? Anyway, as I was goin’ on to say, any fool see the whole bunch of them collars and shirts together ain’ worth a nickel! Them’s the people das callin’ Jews cheap! So I say “Yassum, I think about it” and I get me another job fas’ as I can.

  BOOLIE: Where was that?

  HOKE: Mist’ Harold Stone, Jewish gentleman jes’ like you. Judge, live over yonder on Lullwater Road.

  BOOLIE: I knew Judge Stone.

  HOKE: You doan’ say! He done give me this suit when he finish wid it. An’ this necktie too.

  BOOLIE: You drove for Judge Stone?

  HOKE: Seven years to the day nearabout. An’ I be there still if he din’ die, and Miz Stone decide to close up the house and move to her people in Savannah. And she say “Come on down to Savannah wid me, Hoke.” ‘Cause my wife dead by then and I say “No thank you.” I didn’t want to leave my grandbabies and I doan’ get along with that Geechee trash they got down there.

  BOOLIE: Judge Stone was a friend of my father’s.

  HOKE: You doan’ mean! Oscar say you need a driver for yo’ family. What I be doin’? Runnin’ yo’ children to school and yo’ wife to the beauty parlor and like dat?

  BOOLIE: I don’t have any children. But tell me—

  HOKE: Thass a shame! My daughter bes’ thing ever happen to me. But you young yet. I wouldn’t worry none.

  BOOLIE: I won’t. Thank you. Did you have a job after Judge Stone?

  HOKE: I drove a milk truck for the Avondale Dairy through the whole war—the one jes’ was.

  BOOLIE: Hoke, what I’m looking for is somebody to drive my mother around.

  HOKE: Excuse me for askin’, but how come she ain’ hire fo’ herseff?

  BOOLIE: Well, it’s a delicate situation.

  HOKE: Mmmm-hmm. She done gone roun’ the bend a little? That’ll happen when they get on.

  BOOLIE: Oh no. Nothing like that. She’s all there. Too much there is the problem. It just isn’t safe for her to drive anymore. She knows it, but she won’t admit it. I’ll be frank with you. I’m a little desperate.

  HOKE: I know what you mean ‘bout dat. Once I was outta work my wife said to me “Oooooh, Hoke, you ain’ gon get now nother job.” And I say “What you talkin’ ’bout, woman?” And the very next week I go to work for that woman in Little Five Points. Cahill! Miz Frances Cahill. And then I go to Judge Stone and they the reason I happy to hear you Jews.

  BOOLIE: Hoke, I want you to understand, my mother is a little high-strung. She doesn’t want anybody driving her. But the fact is you’d be working for me. She can say anything she likes but she can’t fire you. You understand?

  HOKE: Sho I do. Don’t worry none about it. I hold on no matter what way she run me. When I nothin’ but a little boy down there on the farm above Macon, I use to wrastle hogs to the ground at killin’ time, and ain’ no hog get away from me yet.

  BOOLIE: How does twenty dollars a week sound?

  HOKE: Soun’ like you got yo’ mama a chauffeur.

  Lights fade on them and come up on Daisy, who enters her living room with the morning paper. She reads with interest. Hoke enters the living room. He carries a chauffeur’s cap instead of his hat. Daisy’s concentration on the paper becomes fierce when she senses Hoke’s presence.

  Mornin’, Miz Daisy.

  DAISY: Good morning.

  HOKE: Right cool in the night, wadn’t it?

  DAISY: I wouldn’t know. I was asleep.

  HOKE: Yassum. What yo’ plans today?

  DAISY: That’s my business.

  HOKE: You right about dat. Idella say we runnin’ outta coffee and Dutch Cleanser.

  DAISY: We?

  HOKE: She say we low on silver polish too.

  DAISY: Thank you. I will go to the Piggly Wiggly on the trolley this afternoon.

  HOKE: Now, Miz Daisy, how come you doan’ let me carry you?

  DAISY: No, thank you.

  HOKE: Ain’t that what Mist’ Werthan hire me for?

  DAISY: That’s his problem.

  HOKE: All right den. I find something to do. I tend yo’ zinnias.

  DAISY: Leave my flower bed alone.

  HOKE: Yassum. You got a nice place back beyond the garage ain’ doin’ nothin’ but sittin’ there. I could put you in some butter beans and some tomatoes and even some Irish potatoes could we get some ones with good eyes.

  DAISY: If I want a vegetable garden, I’ll plant it for myself.

  HOKE: Well, I go out and set in the kitchen then, like I been doin’ all week.

  DAISY: Don’t talk to Idella. She has work to do.

  HOKE: Nome. I jes’ sit there till five o’clock.

  DAISY: That’s your affair.

  HOKE: Seem a shame, do. That fine Oldsmobile settin’ out there in the garage. Ain’t move a inch from when Mist’ Werthan rode it over here from Mitchell Motors. Only got nineteen miles on it. Seem like that insurance company give you a whole new car for nothin’.

  DAISY: That’s your opinion.

  HOKE: Yassum. And my other opinion is a fine rich Jewish lady like you doan’ b’long
draggin’ up the steps of no bus, luggin’ no grocery-store bags. I come along and carry them fo’ you.

  DAISY: I don’t need you. I don’t want you. And I don’t like you saying I’m rich.

  HOKE: I won’ say it then.

  DAISY: Is that what you and Idella talk about in the kitchen? Oh, I hate this! I hate being discussed behind my back in my own house! I was born on Forsyth Street and, believe you me, I knew the value of a penny. My brother Manny brought home a white cat one day and Papa said we couldn’t keep it because we couldn’t afford to feed it. My sisters saved up money so I could go to school and be a teacher. We didn’t have anything!

  HOKE: Yassum, but look like you doin’ all right now.

  DAISY: And I’ve ridden the trolley with groceries plenty of times!

  HOKE: Yassum, but I feel bad takin’ Mist’ Werthan’s money for doin’ nothin’. You understand?

  DAISY: How much does he pay you?

  HOKE: That between me and him, Miz Daisy.

  DAISY: Anything over seven dollars a week is robbery. Highway robbery!

  HOKE: Specially when I doan’ do nothin’ but set on a stool in the kitchen all day long. Tell you what, while you goin’ on the trolley to the Piggly Wiggly, I hose down yo’ front steps.

  Daisy is putting on her hat.

  DAISY: All right.

  HOKE: All right I hose yo’ steps?

  DAISY: All right the Piggly Wiggly. And then home.

  Nowhere else.

  HOKE: Yassum.

  DAISY: Wait. You don’t know how to run the Oldsmobile!

  HOKE: Miz Daisy, a gearshift like a third arm to me. Anyway, thissun automatic. Any fool can run it.

  DAISY: Any fool but me, apparently.

  HOKE: Ain’t no need to be so hard on yo’seff now. You cain’ drive but you probably do alotta things I cain’ do.