MBF Productions

Production Closed - November 23rd, 2008

Stage 5 Theatre shows promise with solid premiere offering, “How I Learned to
Drive.”

Review by August Krickel.

Stage 5 Theatre makes an auspicious entry into the world of local theatre with its premiere production of Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned To
Drive.” Tucked away in a former movie theatre in Columbia’s northeast, this production features an enthusiastic young cast in a thought-
provoking one-act that won the Pulitzer in 1998.

The show’s theme is pedophilia, but this is no cautionary lesson or didactic horror story.
Instead, this is a memory play, moving backwards and forwards in non-linear fashion through
the narrator’s troubled 1960s adolescence, shifting gears via excerpts from a drivers’ ed
manual (reverse, idle in neutral, move forward from 2nd into 3rd, etc.). Our protagonist is
known to us only by a family nickname, “Li’l Bit,” and she is capably brought to life by
Victoria Jepson, who smoothly transitions from age 11 though the teen years and into
adulthood with nothing but natural mannerisms and an occasional change of hairstyle. Driving is
presented as a metaphor for Lil Bit’s navigation though life, with her aunt’s husband, Uncle
Peck, enabling her independence with lessons in both.

A gifted child born into a family where heavy drinking and teen marriage/motherhood are the norm, Li’l Bit resists the notion that a woman’s place
is in the kitchen and bedroom. Developing at an early age, she attracts Peck’s attention. Horrifyingly at first, we discover that Peck in his own
sick way is the closest thing to a father figure, confidante, even boyfriend that Li’l Bit has. In one of the play’s many ironies, the self-confidence
she gains from his attention enables her to realize how wrong it is, and on her 18th birthday, the day Peck expects them to declare their undying
love, she breaks off the relationship.

In a rare flash-forward to her late 20’s, we see the adult Li’l Bit as a teacher, choosing to believe a random youth’s assertion that he is a senior in
high school, and allowing him to believe that it is he who has seduced her. Is she a harmless Blanche Dubois figure (or even Stifler’s mom)
offering tea and sympathy, in control at last of her sexuality? Or is she too perpetuating a family cycle of abuse? She concludes that someone
once must have molested Uncle Peck as a child, making him a victim too.

Yet we’re never quite sure how reliable our narrator may be. Amanda Faye, as Aunt
Mary, gives an eloquent defense of Peck, depicting him as a lost soul, a good neighbor
and provider for his family, with Li’l Bit seen as a Lolita who takes advantage of his kind
heart and drinking problem to keep him wrapped around her little finger. Is the playwright
allowing Aunt Mary to speak to the audience directly? Or is this simply the narrator
imagining how things must have seemed to her family?

Top acting honors must go to Will McLeod as Uncle Peck. New to the stage, his delivery on opening night was almost too soft at times,
occasionally hesitant, but always earnest, sincere and believable. Had the role been played by a Steve Buscemi or Harry Dean Stanton look-
alike, one might not feel as empathetic. But as depicted by the young, handsome McLeod, Peck seems a tragic figure, a genuinely nice guy
with one terrible flaw. Or have we too fallen for a sexual predator’s seductive façade? Li’l Bit is still conflicted decades later, romanticizing her
uncle as the Flying Dutchman, doomed to search in vain for love. In McLeod’s best moment on stage, we see Peck’s attempted seduction of
a young male cousin (portrayed silently but poignantly and believably by Sheryl Herr). From the family dynamics presented, there is no way
that Li’l Bit could have ever possibly known of this incident. Again, is the author allowing us a “true” glimpse of the real Peck as a serial child
molester? Or does the narrator simply imagine this as something that must have happened at some point?

In the play’s final flashback, we see the adult Jepson clearly regaling and luxuriating in the sensuality of the moment when her uncle first fondles
her, while Herr voices the younger Li’l Bit, frightened and telling him to stop. Which version, if either, actually happened? Does the mature
narrator now miss her uncle’s unconditional (if twisted) love? Does she wish that she had tried more assertively to get him to stop? Or does she
in some way instigate the event? In retrospect, does she see this is the first step to her own sexual self-awareness?

D.S. Jeffcoat, Amanda Faye and Sheryl Herr are credited as “Male, Female and Teenage
Greek Chorus,” and portray everyone else in Li’l Bit’s past. A comedic high point of the
show (and there are several, believe it or not) is Faye’s tour-de-force as Li’l Bit’s mother,
rattling off a litany of dos and don’ts for when a lady drinks, becoming tipsier by the minute.
Eventually Jeffcoat must lead her off the stage, as if to say “I’m sorry ma’am, you’re going to
have to leave this flashback.”

Stage 5 and director Michael Bailey wisely chose this piece, which requires minimal props, wardrobe and sets. A few road maps of rural
Maryland, the suggestion of a highway’s dividing line, a ramp that functions as a hotel bed and a fishing hole, a bench usually representing the
front seat of Uncle Peck’s car, and a few random chairs (one doubling inventively as a kitchen sink) are it. Located in a former movie theatre (in
the strip mall across from Macy’s at Columbia Mall) this is a black box at its most basic, with some dust here, some peeling wallpaper there.
Thus, “How I Learned To Drive” is perhaps not the optimal choice for grandmom in her mink and granddad in his tux to attend in lieu of a posh
night at the symphony. However, for local enthusiasts of theatre and literature who want to see genuine raw emotions brought to life by a
talented young cast, and who want to support local theatre, this show is a must.