Assignment: Read “How I Learned to Drive” in the Bedford Introduction to Drama, pp. 1750-1773 along with these instructional materials.
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Our book tells us that contemporary drama continues the “experimentation in drama that flourished in the first half of the twentieth century.” (1330) “How I Learned to Drive” is the most recent example in our textbook of a contemporary drama. Paula Vogel, the playwright, experiments with drama in several important ways.
Comedy or Tragedy?:
The reason for blurring the lines.
What type of play is “How I Learned to Drive?” The glossary in your textbook defines comedy as “A type of drama intended to interest and amuse rather than to concern the audience deeply. Although characters experience various discomfitures, the audience feels confident that they will overcome their ill fortune and find happiness at the end.” (1796) Depending on your reaction to this play, it may or may not seem to you to fit this definition, to a degree. It certainly isn’t a traditional comedy. Though the play includes many amusing, even hilarious moments, and though she ends up in a good place, Li’l Bit has been deeply hurt and damaged by her experience. Anyone would have trouble classifying a play about a young girl’s relationship with an incestuous pedophile as a straight-up comedy.
Let’s try another category. Tragedy is defined as “Serious drama in which a protagonist, traditionally of noble position, suffers a series of unhappy events culminating in a catastrophe such as death or spiritual breakdown.” (1802) Hm… “Othello,” sure. “Medea,” you bet. But “How I Learned to Drive” doesn’t fit this definition at all. Though her experience is painful and disturbing, Li’l Bit is o.k. at the end of the play.
What about tragicomedy? Your book defines this as “A play that combines elements of tragedy and comedy. Tragicomedies often include a serious plot in which the expected tragic catastrophe is replaced by a happy ending.” (1802) That’s closer. Paula Vogel does juxtapose comedic and tragic elements in this play. Yet we know from the beginning that Li’l Bit will survive to tell us this story. After all, she begins the play as an adult, taking us through her memories. In fact, we do witness tragic and potentially catastrophic moments in Li’l Bit’s young life, but we ALSO get to see a relatively happy ending.
This play doesn’t fit neatly into any category. What is clear is that Vogel has deliberately combined comedy and tragedy in a non-traditional way, in order to best suit her subject matter, and her message.
· For example, take a look at the “Mother’s Guide to Social Drinking” scene (1754 “You and the Reverse Gear” –1757 up to “Idling in the Neutral Gear”). The Female Greek Chorus, speaking as mother, gets to portray what is arguably the funniest stuff in the play. While offering incredibly detailed advice to her daughter about how to avoid getting sloppy drunk, while still seeming to drink, and how to avoid being taken advantage of by a man, the Female Greek Chorus member proceeds to get drunker and drunker, stumbling, and finally being escorted off the stage as she is “bounced” by the waiter. This must be hilarious to see performed.
· But let’s think about the scene that the “Guide” is intercut with. There is genuine danger for Li’l Bit here, and the audience is aware of it. The Female Greek Chorus gets drunker as the 16 year old Li’l Bit gets drunker, plied with drinks by the crafty Uncle Peck. She may very well be taken upstairs and molested at the inn.
· So WHY combine the hilarity of the “Guide” with a potentially terrible experience for Li’l Bit? The comedy and the danger work together to support Vogel’s vision for this play. This play is not meant to be simply a realistic account of a young girl’s molestation over a period of years. Nor is it meant to be some glib comedy that would demean the experience of anyone who has experienced victimization of this sort. It is meant to be a portrayal of survival, from the point of view of the saddened, but understanding and forgiving adult survivor. The adult Li’l Bit who shares these memories with the audience from the beginning would have to be doing well, even amused, to incorporate humor with the menace of this scene. She, in a way, softens the experience for us. The play is designed to guide our reactions not merely to confusion, horror and disgust, but to laughter, compassion, and hope.
As you work on “Drive,” take note of the places where humor is used alongside some of the darker aspects of the play.
Vogel’s blurring the distinctions between the genres of comedy and tragedy is only one of the ways she experiments with drama. Another feature of contemporary drama’s experimentation is the play’s deliberate unreality – its deliberate theatricality.
Remember Brecht’s techniques of “epic drama” in “Mother Courage?” Brecht wanted to engage his audience in critical thinking about his plays, so he used some new strategies to move away from realism, and to distance the audience from the action. Interestingly, Vogel employs some of the same distancing techniques that Brecht used in writing “Mother Courage.”
· Plotting: The out-of-sequence timeline in “Drive” compares to Brecht’s use of scenes that are not tied together in a linear manner. In both plays, it is made obvious to the audience that we are watching a play, as opposed to, say, “Trifles,” or “A Raisin in the Sun,” where we almost feel as though we are eavesdropping on reality as it unfolds. It is obvious from the beginning of “Drive” that Li’l bit is revealing memories to us. Vogel’s plotting distances the audience from the emotional involvement we would feel if we were watching a more realistic presentation of the same subject matter.
· Characters: To further foreground the unreality of “Mother Courage,” Brecht used flat characters that do not grow or change with time. Vogel accomplishes the same establishment of unreality in her play by using the Chorus to fill in various roles, even speaking for Li’l Bit herself at one point. In addition, the pantomime of certain actions, Li’l Bit’s asides to the audience while conversing with the other characters in the play, and the lack of costume changes all make its theatricality constantly apparent to us.
· Staging: Brecht’s bare stage reminds the audience at all times that they are seeing a play. Vogel’s minimal set accomplishes the same goal, as does her use of slides, and the “Voice” that announces the driver’s ed. sub-headings.
As you can see, there are many similarities between the Brecht’s and Vogel’s plays in their use of obvious theatricality and its distancing effects. There is an important difference between the two plays, however, in the results of that distancing of the audience. In “Mother Courage” the distancing is meant to prevent us from really identifying with the protagonist. By contrast, in “How I Learned to Drive,” the distancing pulls us closer to the main character. Li’l Bit is a highly sympathetic character. She softens the horror for us, because the disturbing action is clearly in the past, and she filters it through her perception and humor. We are distanced from it, but not unsympathetic. So, while Brecht and Vogel both make use of contemporary drama’s techniques of theatricality and distancing, they do so for different reasons, and to different results.
You’ll be looking at some of the ways these elements of theatricality help guide your interpretation in your Solo/Group work on this play.