Robin Morgan:
The "otherizing" of women is the oldest oppression known to our species, and it's the model, the template, for all other oppressions.

PRESS: REVIEW

Theatre Unbound goes full throttle in a powerful production of How I Learned To Drive
Lisa Brock, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Paula Vogel isn't the first artist to use the automobile as a metaphor for sex, but few others have employed it with the crystalline insight and gutsy twists she brings to her 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive. This intelligent, emotionally wrenching work, currently being produced by Theatre Unbound, begins and ends on the front seat of a car. In between, it travels far across a bleak, evocative landscape.

How I Learned to Drive jumps around in time, spanning nearly two decades, as it details the relationship between a young girl and an older man. Much of the action takes place in Uncle Peck's car as he gives Li'l Bit driving lessons. It quickly becomes apparent that theirs is not the typical relationship between uncle and niece; driving lessons are merely a step in Peck's long seduction of Li'l Bit.

Eric Knutson gives a chillingly charismatic performance as the victimizer who uses his easy charm and empathetic manner to manipulate his niece. Playing on her adolescent anxieties, budding sexuality and sense of alienation, he carefully draws her into his secret world, while always giving her the illusion that she's the one in control.

Samantha Maronek does an able job as the young Li'l Bit, self-conscious about her developing body and alternately flirtatious and frightened in her encounters with her uncle. Maronek is less sure-footed as the adult Li'l Bit, presenting a calm, smiling front that's a little too placid to communicate the depth of her anguish.

An ensemble of three actors offer a leavening contrast to the intensity of the relationship between Peck and Li'l Bit, while also anchoring the play in a cultural context. Sheila Regan is outstanding as Li'l Bit's mother, delivering a hilarious monologue entitled "A Mother's Guide to Social Drinking" that underscores the paucity of her mothering skills. In a family where dinner-table conversation is comprised of bra sizes and men's "appetites," these three conjure a hyper-sexualized world-view that ranges from hilarious to chilling. Sasha Walloch is particularly effective as Peck's wife, a woman who lays the blame for her husband's pedophilia on Li'l Bit. Christopher Kehoe offers broad comedy in a variety of roles, ranging from a waiter to Li'l Bit's grandfather.

The strong cast and director Maggie Scanlan's skillful modulation of the light and dark elements of this work go a long way to peeling back the layers of ambiguity in this visceral work. How I Learned to Drive has been seen several times in the Twin Cities since 1998, but this production demonstrates that familiarity doesn't weaken its power.

Lisa Brock writes regularly about theater.