(David Van Tieghem’s original music and sound design share much of the credit.) Although Parker and Morse stop short of whispering, there’s something almost tender about their line readings, as if they might break the mood if they let their voices get away from them. In Parker’s swaggering style, such lines come with a wicked grin.īrokaw is a sturdy scene director who takes a gentler touch with the often-idiosyncratic language of Vogel’s memory play. “In my family, folks tend to get nicknamed for their genitalia,” she tells us. Because Li’l Bit comes from a family of Maryland country crackers, there’s also a lot of grit on that glib tongue of hers.

A list of hard liquor drinks - luscious Pink Ladies, sloe gin fizzes, daiquiris - has the same lilting cadences as a description of a warm summer night under the stars. Vogel is a genuine wordsmith, and her language here is almost indecently seductive. And just for the record, this is no halfway enterprise it’s a first-rate revival of a theater piece that never gets stale, not so long as there are sexual predators abroad in the land and girls with lovely minds who think they know it all, but haven’t a clue about grown men with dirty minds. How I Learned to Drive study guide contains a biography of Paula Vogel, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters. The play itself still sticks in my throat, as it surely does every woman and girl, young or old, who has seen it in a halfway decent production. The How I Learned to Drive Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community members like you. I’ve seen this play about a million times, and lines like that still shock the breath out of me. “Nothing’s gonna happen between us,” his creepy Uncle Peck reassures Li’l Bit. Morse is one of those slow-burn actors who know how to hold a pause until it hollers.

Vogel how i learned to drive