Review: HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE Is Finely Tuned Vehicle For Actors' Shakespeare Project

There are moments in Paula Vogel’s play “How I Learned to Drive” – now being given a superb production by Actors’ Shakespeare Project at Boston’s Roberts Studio Theatre at the Calderwood Pavilion through November 25 – that are so intense that you may want to look away. Don’t, though, because every line must be heard and every action seen in this profound and moving drama.

Inspired by Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel “Lolita,” and told from that title character’s point of view, the affecting one-act play – written and developed at the Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska – had its off-Broadway premiere 26 years ago at the Vineyard Theatre, and just last year was produced on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, with Mary Louise Parker and David Morse reprising their lead roles.

In Boston, as part of ASP’s “The American Bards Series,” which highlights the work of contemporary playwrights, and under the deft, even-handed direction of Elaine Vaan Hogue, an excellent cast is bringing the 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama – a memory play set in rural Maryland in the 1960s about a young woman, Li’l Bit, haunted by her tortured relationship with her aunt’s husband, Uncle Peck, who sexually abused her from girlhood through adolescence – to vivid life.

Eschewing linear storytelling in favor of a series of Li’l Bit-narrated, frequently jarring flashbacks, Vogel makes driving a metaphor for the way the young woman was unwittingly sexualized by Uncle Peck. Jennifer Rohn is riveting at each of  Li’l Bit’s various ages, and particularly heartbreaking in the scenes depicting her youthful zest and wonder being subsumed by the horrible truths of her hidden life. We see how Uncle Peck groomed her and how those around her, including close family, all but endorsed the pedophile’s actions. 

Dennis Trainor Jr. masterfully makes Uncle Peck both revolting and captivating as he lulls his young niece into becoming his victim – his laid-back style masking his ever-present lasciviousness. Peck is much more than just a stock villain. Indeed, he and Li’l Bit, who Vogel never consigns to victimhood, are both fully fleshed out people. Rohn and Trainor are perfectly paired in their scenes together, providing a fascinatingly layered look at their characters’ relationship.

While Uncle Peck takes full advantage of Li’l Bit’s deep insecurities, he is not the only reason for them. Sharing the blame are the rest of her dysfunctional, often cruel family – Amy Griffin, Sarah Newhouse, and Tommy Vines, in multiple role – who function as a sometimes funny Greek chorus. It would be too kind to say that they’re a quirky bunch, they’re more straight-out strange. This is evidenced by Griffin’s portrayal of Li’l Bit’s foul-mouthed and sex-obsessed grandfather, and Vines’ take on the grandmother whose sex life is anything but aspirational for her granddaughter.  

Sarah Newhouse perfectly conveys the chilling nature of Li’l Bit’s hard-drinking mother, whose look-the-other-way attitude about Uncle Peck’s prurient interest in her daughter puts the girl right in the path of danger. She’s also very effective as the victim-shaming Aunt Mary, Uncle Peck’s wife.

When “How I Learned to Drive” was first produced, Vogel, at the request of her physically ill mother, did not reveal that the play was autobiographical. She subsequently acknowledged that the story was her own. It was a powerful admission from the eminently gifted playwright, adding another layer of interest to this compelling work.  

Photo caption: Dennis Trainor Jr. and Jennifer Rohn in a scene from Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production of “How I Learned to Drive.” Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

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