In addition to bearing a nickname as sleazy and demeaning as Li'l Bit, her entire childhood seems aimed at turning her into a mess as a grown-up. Uncle Peck pulled the trigger, molesting her as part of a tawdry, seven-year-long attempt at a complete seduction. That's the essence of "How I Learned to Drive," Paula Vogel's expressive, saddening Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of 1998, but there's more to it, including the wonderful irony that he showed her a way to freedom at the same time.
Vogel's play, scheduled for a revival in New York this season, had a production at the Rep Studio in 1999, but I have not seen it since. Milt Zoth directs the current run, which opened over the weekend at the Kranzberg Arts Center under the auspices of Muddy Waters Theatre. It will run through Nov. 20, completing the current season. Muddy Waters does three plays a year, all by the same author. "The Baltimore Waltz" and "The Mineola Twins" were done earlier in the year; next season, opening in the spring, will feature the work of Tracy Letts.
Laurie McConnell gives a rounded, rich, gripping portrayal to the tortured adolescence of Li'l Bit, saddled with a family that could fit a description as hoosier (small 'h'), poor white trash or one of many other demeaning phrases. Women becoming pregnant and married in their youth, uneducated, unaware, unprepared for life as they will live it. Their men are rude, interested in sex –doing it or talking about it — above almost all else, with breakfast running second. They're a half step from becoming physically abusive. Vogel sketches these supporting characters in a variety of roles as relatives or friends, with effective work from Kimberly Sansone as the female chorus, Michael Brightman as the male chorus, Denise Saylor as the teenage chorus. Zoth's direction goes for the familiar rather than the highly dramatic (Vogel takes care of that part), and the performances by the cast are good ones. The tech work is successful.
And then there's Uncle Peck, married to Li'l Bit's aunt (her mother's sister), with B Weller turning in one of his understated, soft-spoken, brilliant characterizations as a man who, as they used to say, is a little bit light in his loafers. The play is set in suburban Maryland, but Peck is from Charleston, which signified genteel, stylish and very much Old South. He doesn't live there any more, for reasons he fails to explain. Did he make a pass at the wrong man's wife? Or the wrong woman's husband?
Peck shows traits of the pedophile, may be bisexual. He enjoys contact with girls and women, but his wife's comments indicate he may be, as they also say, all hat and no cattle. A relationship with someone like Li'l Bit may be molestation, or statutory rape, but it is not incest, which is specified as relationships with blood relatives in the Missouri and Maryland statutes
Peck both frightens and intrigues Li'l Bit. He gives her books, talks about college, suggests a life beyond the backwoods of Maryland. She is fascinated by a man who knows so much, has feelings that he arouses in her, but is frightened by the knowledge that sex leads to children and to early marriage and to lives like those of her mother, aunt, grandmother and school mates. Her precocious development and curvy figure make her uncomfortable as she sees the reaction of the boys at her school, the men in the dry goods store, the relatives around her own kitchen table, Uncle Peck as they drive through the back woods of Maryland
McConnell, openly vulnerable, shows these various reactions well, as both girl and woman, but her triumph is limited, her injuries perhaps permanent. Still, she learned one immensely valuable lesson from Uncle Peck, and it includes freedom of a sort that still may lead her to the safety and warmth of a two-car garage.
How I Learned to Drive, a production of the Muddy Waters Theatre Company, is on stage at the Kranzberg Arts Center through Nov. 20
— Joe