Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the basis for a Best Picture Oscar-winning film, “Driving Miss Daisy” owes a great deal to its pervading niceness. The off-Broadway play by Alfred Uhry casts a warm glow over an era that was anything but, and it hasn’t grown any less docile over the years. Lyric Theatre is staging the production now through Sunday.

“Driving Miss Daisy” tells the story of Daisy Werthan (Darrie Lawrence) — elderly, crotchety and Jewish. After taking out the neighbor’s garage door with her Chrysler, Daisy is put under house arrest by her entrepreneur son Boolie (Christopher Harrod), who insists on finding Daisy a chauffeur before she can get in a car again.

Boolie finds a driver in Hoke Colburn (Keith Johnson), a black man not much younger than Daisy herself. At first Daisy flatly refuses to be driven anywhere, but soon grudgingly acquiesces and eventually becomes close friends with Hoke.

The three-actor production is undeniably theatrical and fares much better stagebound than it did opened up into the world of film. Set design by Theresa Furphy is unfussy and minimal. There’s a desk representing Boolie’s world, an armchair and bookshelf for Daisy and a simple pair of stools for the play’s most oft-used location — the car where Daisy and Hoke’s friendship blossoms.

It’s perhaps unfair to fault “Driving Miss Daisy” for its sins of omission, but the nonexistence of almost any meaningful racial subtext — especially considering its setting, Atlanta in the ’50s and ’60s — reduces the play to little more than a starry-eyed fantasy.

Could a white woman and a black man be friends in this era? Absolutely, but the play incubates them almost entirely from the surrounding social upheaval and never confronts the troubling aspect that Hoke was essentially chosen for his service job because of the color of his skin.

References to Martin Luther King Jr. and a synagogue bombing do tie Daisy and Hoke together in a larger context, but mostly their connection is achieved through the little things, like a trip to the grocery store or a can of salmon. As a character study of friendship in the midst of the banal, “Driving Miss Daisy” succeeds rather well.

Lyric’s production features a trio of excellent performers, who have no trouble maintaining the intimate feel of the play even in the fairly expansive space. Lawrence displays a bristling cantankerous wit, foiled admirably by Johnson, who lives up to the genial persona embodied by Morgan Freeman, who originated the role off-Broadway and in the film adaptation. Harrod makes the most of his odd-man-out role and gets good mileage with his exasperated demeanor.

Ultimately, “Driving Miss Daisy” doesn’t come across as ignorant, just purposefully bland. Lyric presents an assured production, but the play itself is just nice.

Playbill

What: “Driving Miss Daisy”

When: Now through Sunday.

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

8 p.m. Friday

2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday

3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Lyric Theatre

1727 NW 16th St. in Oklahoma City

Tickets: $40, $15 student rush available 30 minutes before show time

For tickets, call 405-524-9312