How a Creative Team Learned to Trust the Play, the Process, and Each Other
By Joel Beers
Given the choice to hear a story about pedophilia or incest, many might feel inclined to check the “pass” box. A story involving both could induce a stampede out the door. Yet Paula Vogel’s 1997 play, “How I Learned to Drive”, didn’t just confront these taboo subjects head-on—it took audiences on a ride they couldn’t ignore, ultimately winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Its power has endured, as evidenced by winning the 2022 Tony Award for Best Revival.
Told from the perspective of a woman in her 30s who recalls the complex and damaging relationship she had with her uncle from ages 11 to 18, the play is a masterclass in nuance. Despite its dark themes—including misogyny, gender stereotypes, family dysfunction, memory, and trauma—it is also surprisingly funny and defies black-and-white moral interpretation.
Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the play is that, as The New York Times’ Ben Brantley noted in his review of the play’s original New York production, “Drive” is, “in its own appalling way, a love story.”
Peter Kreder, who directs the upcoming Costa Mesa Playhouse production, embraces this idea, calling the play “a very inappropriate love story” about a man who grooms his niece out of a twisted sense of love, and a young girl who mistakes his attention for the father figure she longs for.
Like any love story, at its core, “How I Learned to Drive” is about trust-- or how trust is warped, manipulated, and ultimately betrayed in profoundly disturbing ways.
That also happens to describe the defining element in this production’s creative process—that is, trust without the manipulation and such. Trust in the play. Trust in collaboration. Trust in each other.
Joel Beers has typed about Orange County theatre longer than he would freely admit. You can visit him at his rarely updated blog, www.fermentedbeers.com.
“How I Learned to Drive”
Costa Mesa Playhouse
661 Hamilton St., Costa Mesa
February 6 - February 23, 2025
(949) 650-5269, www.costamesaplayhouse.com
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