Boolie

The play opens in 1948 when Miss Daisy, a lifetime resident of Atlanta, plows her Packard into the garden wall, and loving son Boolie (Boyd Gaines) insists she get a driver.

Fern Siegel: Stage Door: Driving Miss Daisy, The Music of Billy Strayhorn Fern Siegel 2010

Uhry says the characters of Miss Daisy and Boolie are composites of his own family; Hoke is based on Will Coleman, his grandmother's chauffeur, a man he considered his grandfather.

Fern Siegel: Stage Door: Driving Miss Daisy and The Music of Billy Strayhorn Fern Siegel 2010

Even the critics who ponder the slight story line of the spry 72 year old white Jewish matron in Atlanta whose son Boolie hires a black man to chauffeur her around are enchanted with the acting.

Regina Weinreich: Gents-Who Lunch: Nigel Cole and Alfred Uhry Regina Weinreich 2010

The play opens in 1948 when Miss Daisy, a lifetime resident of Atlanta, plows her Packard into the garden wall, and loving son Boolie (Boyd Gaines) insists she get a driver.

Fern Siegel: Stage Door: Driving Miss Daisy, The Music of Billy Strayhorn Fern Siegel 2010

Uhry says the characters of Miss Daisy and Boolie are composites of his own family; Hoke is based on Will Coleman, his grandmother's chauffeur, a man he considered his grandfather.

Fern Siegel: Stage Door: Driving Miss Daisy, The Music of Billy Strayhorn Fern Siegel 2010

Even the critics who ponder the slight story line of the spry 72 year old white Jewish matron in Atlanta whose son Boolie hires a black man to chauffeur her around are enchanted with the acting.

Regina Weinreich: Gents-Who Lunch: Nigel Cole and Alfred Uhry Regina Weinreich 2010

As he reminded us yet again earlier this year in A.R. Gurney's "The Grand Manner," Mr. Gaines is one of the best stage actors we have, and it's something to see how he takes the lesser role of Boolie and fills it with character and individuality.

A Perfect Night on Broadway Terry Teachout 2010

The premise of Mr. Uhry's Pulitzer-winning play will likely be familiar to most readers, but for those who have yet to see it on stage or screen, the title character is an imperious Atlanta matron (Ms. Redgrave) who cracks up her brand-new Packard one fine day in 1948, causing her son Boolie (Mr. Gaines) to conclude that at 72 Daisy is too old to be driving.

A Perfect Night on Broadway Terry Teachout 2010

But Mr. Uhry, to his infinite credit, never steps over the edge: He takes great care to portray Daisy, Hoke and Boolie as people, not symbols, and long before the play has wound down to its elegiac close, you find yourself swept up in the quiet complexities of their three-way relationship.

A Perfect Night on Broadway Terry Teachout 2010

Uhry says the characters of Miss Daisy and Boolie are composites of his own family; Hoke is based on Will Coleman, his grandmother's chauffeur, a man he considered his grandfather.

Fern Siegel: Stage Door: Driving Miss Daisy, The Music of Billy Strayhorn Fern Siegel 2010