STAGE WEST: Backyard Renaissance's "How I Learned to Drive"

Megan Carmitchel and Francis Gercke in "How I Learned to Drive."                        Photo by Daren Scott

            Hopefully in the 27 years since it was first produced and in the many performances of it since, Paula Vogel’s brutally candid “How I Learned to Drive” has given victims of sexual predators the courage to speak about their traumas as well as the resolve to survive. But they couldn’t help but be triggered by a play as explicit as this one is.
            The graphic nature of Vogel’s story about the relationship between Li’l Bit and her Uncle Peck is portrayed at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center downtown in a Backyard Renaissance production that is, to be quite honest, sometimes hard to watch. As Uncle Peck (Francis Gercke) teases and touches Li’L Bit (Megan Carmitchel), who in some scenes in the time-shifting drama is supposed to be as young as 11 years old, I felt the same sort of discomfort that I felt watching the pedophiliac father preying upon his son’s 11-year-old friend in Todd Solondz’s 1998 film “Happiness.”
            I don’t remember being that unnerved when I first saw “How I Learned to Drive,” more than 25 years ago when the San Diego Rep produced it. But that was admittedly a long, long time ago.
            The Backyard production directed by Anthony Methvin is dark and uncompromising with a fearless twosome in Carmitchel and Gercke at the forefront. The play’s Greek Chorus inhabiting multiple roles is Karson St. John (who’s excellent), Emilee Zuniga and William Huffaker. Whatever humor resides in “How I Learned to Drive,” probably intended as much-needed comic relief, comes from the side players, though little if any of it (and especially not the physical comedy) is much relief at all from the almost courtly but predacious Uncle Peck.
            The 100-minute “How I Learned to Drive” is intentionally non-linear. We don’t, for example, witness Uncle Peck’s first molestation of L’il Bit until near the very end. At times she is 13 years old, at others over 30. Uncle Peck never changes, whether it’s the metaphorical teaching Li’l Bit how to drive a car or taking photos of her (for Playboy, for when you’re older) or simply leering at her around the dinner table.
            In fact, every character seems to leer at L’il Bit at one point or another during the storytelling, ramping up the “ick” factor all the more.
            For an actor, playing either the abused Li’l Bit or abusing Uncle Peck has to be an onerous challenge. In Gercke’s case, you’re going to have an audience repelled by your character – I’ve read reviews of this play over the years that expressed some misguided sympathy for Uncle Peck, but I don’t understand why. In Carmitchel’s case, you’re going to have to allow yourself to be touched, even fondled, which has to be incredibly difficult onstage. Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse originated these roles off-Broadway in ’97 and returned to them 25 years later as well. But I feel like one could play the characters years on end and always feel some discomfort even while being true to the play and the craft.
            Vogel has said that the approach for “How I Learned to Drive” was inspired by Nabokov’s “Lolita,” calling it in a 1997 Playbill interview “so even-handed and so neutral.”
            It’s tough to be neutral about either one. If L’il Bit is in the end empowered by having survived her uncle’s molestations and can move on with her life, that’s some catharsis for the audience. As for being neutral, that’s something for driving a car but no more.
            “How I Learned to Drive” runs through March 16 at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center downtown.