The Manhattan Theatre Club couldn’t have scheduled the revival of Paula Vogel’s 1998 Pulitzer-Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive because they mystically sensed the arrival would coincide with a surge of skewed concentration on pedophilia. Nobody is that prescient.
Neither producers Lynne Meadows nor Barry Grove — with Daryl Roth and Cody Lassen in association with the play’s original producer Vineyard Theatre — could have foreseen that just as the opening approached, Republican senators would make pedophilia the reprehensible theme of the Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
They surely couldn’t have imagined that QAnon enchantress Marjorie Taylor Green, perpetual foot-in-mouth Ted Cruz, and suspected adolescent sex-trafficker Matt Gaetz would poison national air with their subsequent pedophilia accusations.
[Read Elysa Gardner’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Yet, here as an antidote to the current national affliction is, once again, Vogel’s wise How I Learned to Drive. In 90 minutes she views pedophilia with an overarching nuance that deserves to have an effect in the United States. Unfortunately, in the currently Dis-United States, nuance is rarely recognized and less often appreciated.
So here is How I Learned to Drive with no less than its 1997 top players Mary Louise Parker and David Morse as respectively Li’l Bit and her Uncle Peck (as well as the returning Johanna Day). Again, they’re directed with superb finesse by Mark Brokaw. The newcomers are Allysa May Gold and Chris Myers as Vogel’s so-called Greek Chorus (in the longtime drama professor’s sly bow to Greek tragedy).
Here’s the same Li’l Bit, whose Uncle Peck claims he’s loved her since he first held her as an infant. He’s allowed his illicit love to increase for 17 years and counting. Here’s the same Li’l Bit who knows there’s something “wrong” with what’s steadily transpiring between her and Peck but confesses, “I was sixteen or so before I realized that pedophilia did not mean people who loved to bicycle.”
As Li’ Bit narrates her compulsive backward glance to 1969 and a few following years, Vogel depicts a pedophile’s process possibly more defined today than it was some years ago: grooming. Peck, who’s also fighting alcoholism, might be considered the poster boy for groomers. He goes about his compulsive task with disclaimers. He insists he’ll go no further showing affection than Li’l Bit wants. Then, he’ll ask instantly if going further is what she does want.
He’s devious, but Vogel doesn’t restrict the questionable behavior to the chief groomer. In an early sequence, her grandmother and grandfather (Gold and Myers assuming those roles) jabber about Li’l Bit’s physical changes. Much sizable bra talk is bandied, even as Li’l Bit’s announces she wants an education, and Grandfather snarls, “Shakespeare is really going to help you in life.”
Had Vogel simply gone on about Peck and family in an atmosphere where pedophilia forebodingly thrives, she might have presented a meaningful portrait of sexual and incestuous abuse but no more. That’s where her brilliance shifts into fourth gear — or, in dramaturgical terms, even fifth or sixth gear.
That’s where her How I Learned to Drive title takes on a literal and metaphorical weight. While Peck increasingly and insidiously puts the moves on Li’l Bit, he also teaches her the rudiments and fine points of driving. He insists on her driving safely, always controlling the wheel with both hands, the right hand at three o’clock, the left hand at nine o’clock.
In appealing ways, he contributes positively and lastingly on Li’l Bit’s life, so much so that she comes to value the accomplishments made under Peck’s tutelage. To enforce the good influence the uncle has on the young, Vogel gives him a monolog (how does Li’l Bit know about it?) in which Peck instructs (the unseen) Cousin Bobby in a sportsman’s fondness for fishing. When Bobby lands a Pompano but doesn’t want to kill it, Peck sets it free and assures Bobby crying is perfectly acceptable.
There, too, Peck makes it difficult to charge the obsessed fellow outright. Vogel does, however, commit one error. While watching the proceedings, observers may wonder whether, despite the loose family atmosphere, no one notices what’s going on with Li’l Bit and Peck. The Greek Chorus does once, suggesting something off-kilter is occurring. But the observation is never followed up, as seems likely it would be.
Nonetheless, what seems a potential red flag registers as small in the context of Vogel’s otherwise smart, often comic (!) writing. In particular, Day steps into designer Mark McCullough’s spotlight on several occasions to discuss drinking etiquette. Doing so, she gets progressively inebriated.
Vogel and producers also know on what side of the acting and directing their bread is buttered. Twenty-five years later and on Rachel Hauck’s attractively economical set, Parker remains the 17-year-old (and then some) she was then. Remarkable! Her version of innocence assailed and fighting back is acting at a zenith. Morse’s driven Peck, woefully at odds with a man’s instincts for civility, matches Parker. In their many appearances, Gold, Myers, and especially Day during her imbibing moments prove their worth.
With an abundant playwright’s sophistication, Vogel has contributed to comprehending the fathomless complexities of human behavior.
How I Learned to Drive opened April 19, 2022, at Samuel J. Friedman Theatre and runs through May 29. Tickets and information: manhattantheatreclub.com
