Theater Review: ‘How I Learned to Drive’ Sells Tawdry Pedophilia as Serious Drama

Works of art evolve down the years, as do the reasons why they strike a chord. When Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive debuted off-Broadway a quarter of a century ago, it titillated and shocked. At the outset, as a teen girl and a much older man have an increasingly sexualized exchange in a car that culminates in his fondling her breasts, the punchline of the scene grabbed audiences: “Uncle Peck!” cries the girl, called Li’l Bit. Theatergoers gasped. The play’s subject — the man’s relentless campaign to sexually pressure his adolescent, then teen, then young-adult, niece — was novel enough for the play to be labeled important and daring when actually it was merely prurient, a highbrow way to consume a bit of smut.

Vogel was cagey about the topic at the time, but the work, now making its Broadway debut starring Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse, both of whom also led the cast of that off-Broadway production that yielded a Pulitzer Prize for its author, is forthrightly autobiographical. The audience pays for the privilege of indulging the playwright. “This happened to me,” Vogel is telling us, “therefore you must pay attention.”

About the Author

Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith is the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

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Works of art evolve down the years, as do the reasons why they strike a chord. When Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive debuted off-Broadway a quarter of a century ago, it titillated and shocked. At the outset, as a teen girl and a much older man have an increasingly sexualized exchange in a car that culminates in his fondling her breasts, the punchline of the scene grabbed audiences: “Uncle Peck!” cries the girl, called Li’l Bit. Theatergoers gasped. The play’s subject — the man’s relentless campaign to sexually pressure his adolescent, then teen, then young-adult, niece — was novel enough for the play to be labeled important and daring when actually it was merely prurient, a highbrow way to consume a bit of smut.

Vogel was cagey about the topic at the time, but the work, now making its Broadway debut starring Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse, both of whom also led the cast of that off-Broadway production that yielded a Pulitzer Prize for its author, is forthrightly autobiographical. The audience pays for the privilege of indulging the playwright. “This happened to me,” Vogel is telling us, “therefore you must pay attention.”