HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE
by Paula Vogel
Directed by Mark Brokaw
Starring Mary Louise Parker, David Morse
and Johanna Day
A Production of Manhattan Theatre Club
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
Reviewed by David Spencer
Quite remarkably, How I Learned to Drive is even more effective and unsettling in 2022 than it was upon its NYC debut in 1997. Which is not to say that it should be surprising. With the lid having been blown off so many subjects that, even in ’97, well into more enlightened times, hadn’t had the full force of today’s sociological shakeup, Paula Vogel’s modest little drama on child abuse solidly remains a perfectly structured tone poem and an ideal primer on the pathology of both abuser and victim.
In an interview she stated how surprised she was, upon reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, to find herself sympathizing with its narrator and child abuser Humbert Humbert. Taking a cue from that, she introduces us to the relationship between Uncle Peck and his niece L’il Bit (yes, the traditional family nicknames mean precisely what you think they mean) and—giving us the events out of sequence—starts with points in which Peck is at his most benign and sympathetically solicitous to L’il Bit: never forceful, always acknowledging her power to say no, and to never do anything she doesn’t “want to do.” It’s only as the scenes gather cumulative menace that we see how craftily Peck weaves the illusion of power and tightens the noose.
Contributing to both flow and fragmentation, the play has a double framework. It’s L’il Bit’s memory play; she speaks to us from her perspective as a mature adult; but the sections are bannered by an ensemble of three protean players, who take on the various supporting roles, as topic headings in a driving manual.
Minor caveat: It’s harder to see the potentially redemptive qualities in Peck, 25 years later, despite Ms. Vogel’s skill at deceptively starting with the suggestion that they might exist, simply because we know too much now. And very possibly this very play was among the reasons that we do.
It is not, however, hard for the play to recapture its mesmerizing spell. Its peculiar nature makes the casting of three key roles almost completely impervious to the passage of time, and thus all three actors are recreating the parts they originated a quarter century ago at the Vineyard. Mary Louise Parker has lost none of the innocent credulity that leads to growing awareness of the box she’s in and the disconnection that has happened between her spirit and her body; and David Morse has lost none of the quietly assured charm that becomes a metaphor for predation. The third in the triumvirate of original players is the redoubtable Johanna Day, billed as “Female Greek Chorus,” but memorably assaying a number of characters. (The younger newcomers, filling out the chorus, are Alyssa May Gold and Chris Meyers.)
What’s a recreation without its original director? Mark Brokaw has likewise returned. The set, though credited to a new designer (Rachel Hauck) very much recalls the original, as it would have to; what’s called for remains a few chairs and movable set pieces. What Ms Hauck seems to have very subtly contributed are the nuances creating the illusion that she hasn’t done anything much; when in fact, she’s taken the elements of a play that could exist as easily in a rehearsal room or a den and make them seem as at home, as unpretentious and as intimate in a Broadway house.
May How I Learned to Drive stick around longer than its scheduled limited run. And—just a notion—when Ms. Parker and Ms. Morse have finished their tenure, may they be succeeded by Jayne Atkinson and Bruce Davison, their first and equally memorable replacements…who still seem likewise very able to recapture the haunting moment.