‘How I Learned to Drive’ tackles sensitive issues

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown State University Theatre will present the drama “How I Learned to Drive,” by Paula Vogel, for six performances over two-consecutive weekends, beginning Friday.

Directed by YSU adjunct faculty member Pat Foltz, “How I Learned” is a warm, tragic, funny and perceptive memory play in which a young woman named Li’l Bit looks back on her warped experience with love and struggles to forgive in the face of her past sexual trauma.

“How I Learned” follows the strained, sexual-romantic relationship between Li’l Bit and her aunt’s husband, Uncle Peck, from her childhood through her adolescence and into adulthood.

Set mostly in rural Maryland, Vogel’s provocative play begins with Li’l Bit taking the audience through several decades of her life, going as far back as when she was 11 years old.

Rather than following a chronological plot, Vogel has purposely rearranged the order of events to reflect the mysterious way that memories work.

Over the course of the play, we learn that Li’l Bit – profoundly affected by her relationship with Peck and her family’s treatment of her – has alcoholic and perhaps even nascent pedophilic tendencies of her own.

However, she may have the strength and self-knowledge to break the damaging cycle of dysfunction, gain insight into her uncle’s troubled psyche and learn forgiveness.

“How I Learned” addresses difficult subject matter but does so with compassion, sophistication and gentle humor.

The drama seeks to help audiences deal with troubling issues such as pedophilia and family dysfunction in a way that allows them to develop a greater understanding of these issues and the ability to constructively respond to them.

The play won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel Prize, the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play, as well as Vogel’s second OBIE.

Cast members include Rosie Bresson, Canfield; Mason Edmunds, Poland; Dakota Naples, Niles; Madeline Pomeroy, Youngstown; and Nicolas Wix, Salem.

Parking is available in the M30 Wick Avenue parking deck for a nominal fee.