CARLENTINI – On 24 March 2022, Milena Vukotic, Maximilian Nisi and Salvatore Marino enter the scene at the “Turi Ferro” of Carlentini. Excellent interpreters of “A walk with Daisy” by Alfred Uhry, with the adaptation by Mario Scaletta and directed by Guglielmo Ferro.The costumes were designed byGraziellaPera, the music by Massimiliano Pace and the scenes by Fabiana Di Marco. The general organization is by Tania Corsaro.
1948… Miss Daisy Werthan is an elderly and distinguished Jewish lady of seventy-two. She was widowed by a wealthy Jewish fabric manufacturer and a retired primary school teacher. She is a stingy woman, very active and independent, with a gruff character and a stubborn temperament, especially when it comes to her fixations and prejudices.
One day she loses control of her car and her son Boolie, heir to her father’s company, decides to hire her a driver despite her initial refusal.
Thus, it was that Boolie hired a black man of nearly seventy, Hoke Colburn, an illiterate and retired milk delivery driver.
Fortunately, the newly hired driver manages to manage the lady’s edgy and fussy way of doing things, with a pinch of irony and a lot of patience.
Hoke, however, tries to tame the situation, through his always spontaneous and sunny smile, also indulging in digs of pungent humor.
Despite the initial refusal, Daisy softens and is more friendly with the driver, until both improve the relationship difficulties, to the point that he also allows himself as a gardener, cook, and waiter.
Before the eyes of the viewer, the magic of the great capacity of the human character takes place, which with the passage of time, alongside the right people, can adapt to changes, until it gets better. In fact, it will be like this … A beautiful friendship story will be born between the two, so much so that the teacher decides to offer her knowledge to the illiterate driver, to the point of teaching him to read and write.
1966… Daisy in the meantime is ninety years old, but her strong character always keeps her in excellent health. At a social dinner, attend a Martin Luther King talk. This is the moment in which the true moral message is revealed and the clear social denunciation of which the theater becomes a means, that is, the discrimination of whites at the expense of blacks. It highlights the fact that this phenomenon is not limited only to public violence and the ghettoization of blacks, but is fomented by the silence of people who say they are respectable, who turn their gaze to the opposite side and do not help to improve the situation.
It is denounced the fact that, within a society that defines itself as modern and evolved, there is still talk of racism, discrimination, indifference and hypocrisy.
At ninety-four, Daisy falls ill with dementia, her memory takes her back to when she taught her children. In this ending of chronological confusion, Daisy will go to a home for the elderly, where she will occasionally receive visits from her son and his true friend Hoke, who is also now older.
So … a comedy that initially seemed to be as pungent as the protagonist, hides a message that is as profound as it is current.
Alongside the theme of racism, which is not only animated by the Ku Klux Klan, but also by what everyone has inside their heart, the theme of old age is highlighted, which comes with its strangeness and weaknesses. After a life lived under the banner of work, bitterness and even small joys, you go back with your mind. This journey backwards, along the time line and the chronological excursus, the elderly person experiences the illusion of having got on the time machine and being back where it all began, where everything was as he wanted it to remain. Around her, everything evolves inexorably, but luckily she doesn’t notice it. Last but not least, the theme of friendship and the strength it unleashes, understood as a source of inspiration and evolution for every human being.
