Review: Barrington Stage Company, “Driving Miss Daisy”

Barrington Stage, Pittsfield, MA
www.barringtonstageco.org
May 26 – June 21, 2026
by Shera Cohen

Over the 26 years since Barrington Stage Company (BSC) began, most season openers have been big musicals; a strategic and smart choice as an audience draw.This summer of 2026 differs.

“Driving Miss Daisy” is a small play with a few big messages. Essentially a comedic drama (dramady) with a cast of only three, it is the talents of the actors that can make or break the spirit of the story. Add the fourth vital player in the mix -- a tried ‘n true director – and what appears on stage are live characters, telling their story, in a quality production.

Set in 1948, Georgia, is spunky Jewish widow Daisy. Her trappings are upper-middle

class, although she refuses to admit it. She is spunky and stubborn. At the start of the

play, the world revolves around her. Enters an unwanted hire, who Daisy’s son insists on as Daisy’s driver. Apparently, the widow Daisy has had one too many car accidents. For good or bad, Hoak, a middle-aged, unemployed, African-American man gets the job. The plot becomes the developing relationship between these two disparate people.

Debra Jo Rupp, a frequent player at BSC, as well as one of the audience’s favorites, becomes Daisy, not so much in broad comedy strokes as she has depicted in other

BSC plays, but subdued, befitting her character. For the most part, Rupp makes for an ideal Daisy. Even wearing a grey-haired wig, Rupp belies Daisy’s age as 72, and throughout the scenes she ages to 97, the audience must forgive the aging process as

fiction. Rupp is too young and cute.

Ray Anthony Thomas, a newcomer to BSC as Hoke, comes with an impressive resume. Thomas effectively grows from Daisy’s chauffeur to become her friend. This is Daisy and Hoke’s play against a background of prejudice and racism in the U.S. Matthew Korinko, as Daisy’s son, serves as the conduit between the other two characters. Boolie’s role doesn’t call for deep analysis.

“Daisy” especially benefits by the direction of BSC’s founder and artistic director of over 20 years, Julianne Boyd. Although now retired, Boyd keeps her creative mind and hand in a few productions this summer. It is assuring that she has not completely left the theatre that she created.