How I Learned to Drive
October 2004
General Admission $15
Click here to print a postcard (pdf)
Playbill (click here for cast and crew bios)
Previews Oct 7th.
Runs Fridays and Saturdays @ 8PM
Oct 8th-Oct 16th
The Raven Playhouse
5233 Lankershim Blvd
N. Hollywood, CA 91601
(Click for a MAP)
Don Grigware - NoHoLA Best of 2004
LEAD PERFORMANCE (Play/Musical)
Veronique Ory/Jon Emm
How I Learned to Drive Athena Theatre Co @The Raven
How I Learned to Drive - Reviewplays.com
Veronique Ory is the kind of theatre person that takes chances, not for the sake of it, but to push herself and explore the concepts of what makes a good performance and how it affects the audience, the actors and the story itself.
This most recent effort has all the elements of walking on a tightrope, reaching the other end successfully after stepping with baited breath, and giving a cheer that lets you know she's probably thinking of doing it again.
How I Learned to Drive explores a strange relationship between a young girl and her uncle, bouncing back and forth across time from her pre-teen years to adulthood. Disguised as driving lessons from the uncle, his lust for her spins a benevolent web that captures the girl's affections and trust, and while she draws clear boundaries that he playfully pushes, there is a definite intimacy established between them over a seven year period.
Jon Emm is exceptional as the uncle torn between what he knows is definitely taboo and his agonizing desire for carnal pleasure from Lil' Bit, his precocious niece. The role of uncle/surrogate father requires that a fine line be defined between someone who has genuine love for a child, while harboring desires so strong that reason and common sense are flung to the winds. Veronique Ory is brilliant as she fills the role of the young woman who approaches the uncle's advances with wonderful childlike innocence, which slowly develops to picaresque teasing, ending in absolute abomination as she realizes how she's been used throughout the years. She makes you wonder just how much she encouraged the uncle, and he makes you angry that such a nice, gentle guy could harbor such perverted feelings.
Adding dimension to the story is a trio of excellent actors appearing like a chorus, returning off and on as her mother, her grandfather and her grandmother. If Norman Rockwell would have painted "The Dysfunctional American Family", it would have to be the characters played by Kurt David Anderson, Pamela Clay and Laura Beckner. They were so good in their parts, you instantly dislike them and you no longer wonder why Lil' Bit has to turn to Uncle Peck for affection and attention.
Author Paula Vogel draws some very sharply defined profiles, infusing her characters with plain everyday traits, skewed just a tiny bit in each person, but just enough that the congruity of a family circle becomes an unrecognizable scribble.
Scott Tiler uses this material insightfully, directing with stylish restraint, never letting the characters overplay their roles. This way, we, the audience, decide if we want to accept or reject the characters and if we believe that this story is about a beauty and a beast or about two people manipulating each other to fill their needs.
The show played at the Raven Playhouse for far too short a run, closing on October 16. Let's hope that producer Veronique Ory brings it back soon.
How I Learned to Drive - Trailer
Click here to download the trailer (WMV) 17 mb WMV format
Click here to download the trailer (MOV) 33 mb Quicktime format
Reviewplays.com - Best of 2004
ReviewPlays selects best of year:
THE OUTSTANDING PLAYS OF 2004
HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE
The Raven Theatre - Athena Theatre Company
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES BY A MALE ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE
GJ Echternkamp
Waiting for Godot
The Raven Playhouse - The Athena Theatre Company
Jon Emm
How I Learned to Drive
The Raven Playhouse - The Athena Theatre Company
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Veronique Ory
How I Learned to Drive
The Raven Playhouse - Athena Theatre Company
Click here for the full list at Reviewplays.com
How I Learned to Drive - NoHoLA
by Don Grigware
Uncle Peck in Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize winning How I Learned to Drive calls to mind Professor Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Both men are pedophiles yet victims themselves of a sick sense of love. Peck is sincerely in love with his niece Li'l Bit and we almost look past his perverted frailty to start to feel for him, especially in Athena Theatre's quintessential production playing only two more times Friday Oct 15 and Saturday Oct 16 at the Raven Playhouse in NoHo.
How is it possible to feel sympathy for a pedophile? Perhaps it's Vogel's humorous perspective. L'il Bit, as narrator states quite emphatically at the beginning of the play, finally learned that pedophilia were not people who love to bicycle.
She was victimized, yet still manages to look back at what happened with some sense of humor. Maybe when you view L'il Bit's dysfunctional family as a whole, that makes Uncle Peck seem the more stabilizing influence. Through her eyes we are introduced to her crazed Southern alcoholic mother and grandparents (the grandfather has enough testosterone for ten men and grandma can sex-talk you under the table), and then there's the gentle protective Uncle Peck whose love for L'il Bit goes back to her birth when he held her tiny body in the palm of his hand.
That picture is surely more tender than harmful. It's really quite a powerful image: a man holding a woman in the palm of his hand. Think of King Kong softly stroking Jessica Lange's hair as she sat a helpless victim in his gigantic palm. It's grotesque and beautiful at the same time. That duality may be in Uncle Peck's favor. Some may see him more a tortured soul than a criminal.
Under director Scott Tiler's careful eye, Jon Emm and the gloriously gifted Veronique Ory deliver potent performances that deserve to be seen by a much wider audience. The supporting cast of Pamela Clay, Kurt Anderson and Laura Beckner who form a Greek chorus around the principals and play all of the other significant roles are equally wonderful.
RECOMMENDED
Veronique Ory
website
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How I Learned to Drive (Li'l Bit)
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