Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, the first PSC Theater Department show of 2003, and the directorial debut of actress/director Brenda Foley at PSC, sped off stage opening night, February 12, as quickly as it turned the corner into Spring Semester.
The show began with an interesting assortment of shadowy and indistinct family videos; a shocking revelation that such a taboo in society can happen to anyone. Sophomore Rachel Dulude plays Lil’ Bit, a woman reliving the haunting and unsettling memories of her young life in a Maryland backwater town. Veteran Actor and Director (PSC’s The Crucible), Kevin Gardner, plays opposite as the charming, yet morally troubled Uncle Peck, whose fascination with his conflicted niece leads to an inevitable end.
How I Learned to Drive is remembered by Lil’ Bit in fragments and the Greek Chorus, comprised of Senior Sarah Edmunds, Junior Toby Paul, and Sophomore Colleen Rowland, it’s nearly faded recollections. Although Lil’ Bit recounts her disturbing relationship with Uncle Peck, centered behind the wheel of her own driving education, the sensitive lessons of this particular portrayal of Vogel’s modern piece fell on deaf ears.
It is understandable that in directing a play whose content is unpleasant, Foley would make an effort to desensitize her actors. For instance, in PSC’s production of The Investigation in Spring 2000, directed by Dr. Paul Mroczka, I can only speculate the actor’s need for disassociation in order to go on with normal life while recounting the memories of Holocaust victims. However, How I Learned to Drive proceeded to open with disappointing lack of feeling and connection to its audience, rather than prompting them relate to the harrowing ‘it-could-happen-to-you’ tale.
Vogel heralds How I Learned to Drive as a dark comedy, but the only true comedic relief of the show is Edmunds representation of the Female Greek Chorus. She depicts Lil’ Bit’s mother during a witty tirade of a woman’s do’s and don’ts to drinking. With great ease and dramatizing strength, Edmunds delivers half of what Vogel hoped for, as said in an interview with the Literary Director of the American Repertory Theatre, Arthur Holmberg.
“We don’t want to be taken by surprise,” says Vogel, “so we keep our guard up. Comedy defuses that vigilance so in the next moment we are unprepared for the explosion….”
The intense spectrum of amused and disturbed emotions Vogel meant for How I Learned to Drive seemed lost in the rush to keep the scenes from dragging. Dulude barely set aside time between Lil’ Bit’s memories, asides, and present-day speeches and the old-school Driver’s Education voiceover. While Dulude is a convincing impressionable young girl and the Greek Chorus helped to alleviate audience tension, the actors idled in the emotional ordeal, rather than hauling the audience along for the ride.
How I Learned to Drive’s direction also spun itself out of control between the numerous prop, light, and sound changes and coarse blocking. Senior Set Designer Benjamin Aufill covered the basics of How I Learned to Drive‘s setting, creating a miniature highway system while using dark, muted colors in the acting space of the dark comedy. Regardless of the thrust space, however, the actors focused on speaking to the audience directly in front of them, almost oblivious to the near full house, including sideliners. And although a sweet drawl of molasses is one ingredient in the recipe for a Southern boy, it shouldn’t be inaudible.
Senior Lighting Designer Thomas Fetera provided his own ingredients for the Maryland landscape with brilliantly colored fabricated sunsets and evening skies, while giving that faded photographic orange tint to the scenes of Lil’ Bit’s memory. His follow through on spotlighting proved instrumental in keeping the actors on track, but more importantly gave a bittersweet send-off at the end of the play as Lil’ Bit adjusted her pantomimed rear-view mirror to reveal her greatest crutch, but moreover, a sense of survival.
I was quite anxious, but, in the end, very displeased with the drab beginning to the Spring Semester with How I Learned to Drive. The actor’s impassivity led for a bit too much disassociation, and nearly lost the strong message of one’s survival in the face of adversity. Perhaps Foley’s backfiring desensitizing effort and unpolished rush in blocking forges the only lesson learned here: always check for obstructions (safety first) – then floor it.