How I Learned to Drive

A NoHo Arts theatre review of Collaborative Artists Ensemble’s production of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive, directed by Steve Jarrard at The Sherry Theater through March 19.
Meg Wallace and Lane Wray. Photo by Mike Casey.

[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Collaborative Artists Ensemble’s production of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive, directed by Steve Jarrard at The Sherry Theater through March 19.

How I Learned to Drive is a memory play. And like all our memories of family and the frustrations and confusions that those memories can bring, it’s a muddy lens through which the writer sees a life.  This life, Lil’ Bit’s life, has been spent fending off her uncle for as long as she can remember. The memories we see show us the patchwork of sweetness and manipulation that was not at all clearly seen at the time by a preadolescent girl, then teenager, then young woman.  Uncle Peck was Lil Bit’s confidant, her respite from her family of heedless emotional abusers.  In the play we see her, back and forth through time, existing in a kind of quicksand at home and in school. She developed early and was targeted mercilessly by both girls and boys. Home gave her no respite, her uncle was her only friend. But Peck groomed her sickeningly. Being her guardian as well as her devil.  

A NoHo Arts theatre review of Collaborative Artists Ensemble’s production of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive, directed by Steve Jarrard at The Sherry Theater through March 19.
Meg Wallace and Lane Wray. Photo by Mike Casey.

It’s a tough subject, obviously. Not one many would write a play about, especially with such smatterings of humor and such a strange dapple of almost love, almost benevolence, almost understanding. 

For this play to work at all, the performances must be serious, delicate, still, slightly stylized, or the audience, myself included, could not stay in their seats.  Collaborative Artists Ensemble never shies away from the difficult and I have to say they really walked the treacherous line here gracefully.  

A NoHo Arts theatre review of Collaborative Artists Ensemble’s production of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive, directed by Steve Jarrard at The Sherry Theater through March 19.
Meg Wallace and Lane Wray. Photo by Mike Casey.

Which is an interesting observation given the subject manner. There is no violence, but then that was uncle Peck’s modus operandi. The slow and stealthy path.  

How I Learned to Drive is not a study of a victim. It is a telling of a story, in overlapping patterns and shadowy images and blurred lines. Each of the actors performs their puzzle piece perfectly. Nothing to bold, nothing too difficult. Like the memory, a little fuzzy enough that the mind can comfortably recall it.  

A NoHo Arts theatre review of Collaborative Artists Ensemble’s production of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive, directed by Steve Jarrard at The Sherry Theater through March 19.
Jael Saran (l.), Sophia Gonzales, Kathy Bell Denton, Meg Wallace. Photo by Mike Casey.

It’s an astonishing play, no wonder it won the Pulitzer. This fine company of actors does an excellent job with a complicated subject fraught with layers of damage upon damage upon damaged people. 

Bravo to the Collaborative Artists Ensemble for this brave and compassionate production of an absolute American classic. 

The Cast

Steve Jarrard helms a cast that includes Kathy Bell Denton, Sophia Gonzales, John Ogden, Sage Porter, Jael Saran, Meg Wallace and Lane Wray.

A NoHo Arts theatre review of Collaborative Artists Ensemble’s production of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive, directed by Steve Jarrard at The Sherry Theater through March 19.
Sage Porter (l.), Lane Wray, Mikel Farber, Meg Wallace, Kathy Bell Denton. Photo by Mike Casey.

Tickets:

https://howilearnedtodrive.brownpapertickets.com/

When:

Through March 19

Where:

The Sherry Theater

11052 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601