Driving Ms. Daisy - Alfred Uhry

Please read Driving Ms. Daisy for June 3. There will be a quiz on the play when you arrive on Wednesday.

Plays are representational. They represent real life, they are NOT real life. Actors are representations of their characters. Set pieces are representations of real locations, etc. How symbolic or metaphorical the representation will be is completely up to the playwright (and sometimes the director).

As playwrights, you should be aware that you want to match your action/plot/characters to the style you are attempting to create. A realistic play should "look" real. It should be realistically delivered, often in a realistic setting. Anything that brings attention to itself as being "unrealistic" harms the "realism" of a play/act/scene or beat (moment) on stage. Most common is switching sets or having actors do something that they wouldn't "realistically" do. Realism, however, works on a continuum. The more "unrealstic", the more the play relies on metaphor or formalistic elements. Pay attention to those moments when a story gets "weird" -- usually the writer has a reason for this to occur.

In Driving Ms. Daisy ask yourself:
--What actions or events occur that are realistic?
--What actions or events occur that we see as REPRESENTATIVE?
--How does the playwright create a suggested set? How is the set's flexibility used to keep the action of the play going and continuous from scene to scene?
--How is this play different from others you have read? (Streetcar Named Desire or Night Mother? for example)
--What is the play's major dramatic question?