Sitting in straightbacked chairs on a nearly bare set, Morse and Parker evoke the car rides that shape and intertwine their lives. In a nonlinear narrative, Li’l Bit (Mary Louise Parker) tries to understand her relationship with her Uncle Peck (David Morse), whose driving lessons taught her as much about gender relations and her own sexuality as they did about the proper use of rearview mirrors, gearshifts, and turn signals.ĭriving becomes the action that evokes Li’l Bit’s memories driving metaphors chart Li’l Bit’s growth into automotive mastery and sexual mystery, punctuating the play’s movement back and forth in time. In How I Learned to Drive-which won the 1997 Drama Desk Award for Best Play and several Obie Awards-Vogel’s conceits remain personal, political, and highly theatrical. Playwright Paula Vogel tends to select sensitive, difficult, fraught issues to theatricalize, and to spin them with a dramaturgy that’s at once creative, highly imaginative, and brutally honest. Li’l Bit (Mary-Louise Parker) and Uncle Peck (David Morse) in Vineyard Theatre’s production of Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, directed by Mark Brokaw.
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