Star power a driving force as veterans take their seats Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones In Driving Miss Daisy. Picture: Jeff Busby Source: Supplied THEATRE Driving Miss Daisy, by Alfred Uhry. Starring Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones. Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane. February 9. THEIR combined age is 169, it's their second show of the day and their props consist of not much more than a floor-mounted steering wheel and a park bench. From the moment Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones enter simultaneously from opposite wings in Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy, the spontaneous eruption of applause indicates that everyone's aware of the theatrical masterclass lying ahead. This Pulitzer Prize-winning, racially charged, classic odd-couple tale of a wealthy Jewish dowager and her warm-hearted African-American chauffeur is given the broadest of stand-and-deliver staging in David Esbjornson's production that has played to rave reviews in the West End and on Broadway. And yet for all its obviously populist intent, the social conscience that drives the narrative spanning those turbulent years of the Civil Rights movement in the American south between 1948 and 1973 is as front-and-centre as the two veteran actors. In a performance lasting barely 90 minutes, every moment is made to count, and Uhry's minimalist, star-vehicle script is like the theatrical equivalent of a pinball machine, its bumpers unobtrusive yet strategically placed, imparting explosions of energy upon any impact with the actors. Single, cleverly placed lines can propel the action forward many years, and simple incidents like Jones's Hoke not being allowed to use a public toilet because of his race, serve as powerful theatrical embodiments of the cause to which Martin Luther King and others devoted their lives. It's the ideal demonstration of a script doing more with less. Unsung hero of a compelling three-hander, though, is Boyd Gaines as Daisy's businessman-son Boolie Werthan. One of the US's leading stage actors, with four Tony Awards to his credit, Gaines's impressive stagecraft bridges the play's two clashing worlds of privilege and under-privilege, while his role illustrates the hateful moral compromise that affects everyone within an unjust social order. For the audience, this is such an easy production to love, given the whole-hearted warmth and generosity of the performances, Wendall Harrington's haunting cinematic-style projections and the way John Lee Beatty's intricate set appears to be modest and unfussy until things start revolving to smooth over scene changes. Ultimately, everything is there to convey the star-power, and it does. Within 10 seconds of the end, it seemed that every person in the theatre was on their feet, some with tears in their eyes. It's hard to ask more than that from any theatre production. Ends in Brisbane February 24. Tours to Sydney Theatre Royal from March 1, Melbourne Comedy Theatre from April 5, Adelaide Her Majesty's Theatre from May 17.