Northampton Community Colleges Department of Theatres "How I Learned to Drive" is fascinating, harrowing and unsettling as it follows the inappropriate relationship between a young women and her uncle “ and its far-reaching effects - that starts when she is a burgeoning preteen and continues into her adulthood.
Paula Vogels searing drama examines how an over-sexualized environment and thoughtlessly sexist comments by family members exacerbate a bad situation.
There is no way out for Lil Bit, the young woman at the center of this quirky play set in southern Maryland in the 1960s. Having developed large breasts at an early age, of which she is ashamed, she is sexualized by everyone around her from her misogynistic grandfather who tells her her large bosom is all she will need in life to the boys at school who she fears just want to see her chest jiggle.
As Li'l Bit, Marian Barshinger conveys the strained innocence of a young girl who is bombarded with inappropriate sexual input. You can feel Lil Bits excruciating embarrassment at her familys joking preoccupation with sex and her desperate, but powerless attempts to try to manage the situation. She also conveys the resigned awareness and hopelessness at her situation which later turns into defiance and strength as the character ages from 11 to 35.
Alexander Smith is cartoonishly unpleasant as the crude grandfather who constantly draws attention to Lil Bits buxom figure to her dismay. Julia Mason is frustratingly submissive as Lil Bits grandmother who tells the girl ugly and too-explicit stories of unwanted sex. Even Lil Bits mothers (Emily Gonzalez) advice is tinged with patriarchal sexism.
In this toxic environment, Uncle Peck, played with disarming charm by Jesse Nitchkey, seems an oasis as he supports Lil Bits desire to go to college and offers to teach her to drive “ a symbol of escape. Unlike the other family members, his comments are not focused on sex, however he employs a much more insidious form of control and manipulation.
Nitchkey makes Peck a sympathetic, although conflicted character, and there are suggestions that he has his own painful demons. Nitchkey is devastating is a monologue as he is taking his young unseen nephew fishing. His advice on how to hook a "shy" fish with "patience and psychology"and talk of keeping secrets take on a very different and unsettling meaning.
However it is all the adults in Lil Bits life, who put the blame for her abuse on the child.
Peck continuously pressure on her to go further, while making much of never doing anything Lil Bit doesnt agree to. Lil Bits mother specifically tells her at 11, that shes holding Lil Bit responsible if something happens between her and Peck, while Pecks wife Mary, blames Lil Bit for seducing her husband, calling the young girl a "sly one."
The plays uses the metaphor of driving for issues of sexual control, and a voice over describe different driving techniques with sexual overtones with mixed results.
Because of the pandemic, the actors are all socially distanced which creates a strange dichotomy in a play with sexual abuse at its center. When Barhsinger and Nitchkey are together they remain distanced, and instead Nitchkey mimes abuse, which makes his actions even creepier.
Director Clair M. Freeman ties the performances of all the actors together into an effective whole that moves along briskly without pause during the entire one-act drama.