On Stage

...Morse gives such a well-rounded performance as her uncle that the play has been criticized for being overly sympathetic to an immoralist...

...Your glass should always be three-quarters full when his glass is empty...

...at others it is her high school years, or her freshman college semester...

...Constantly beleaguered by Grandpa (Christopher Duva), she has never had an orgasm and doesn't believe that such a thing exists...

...Drink, instead, like a man: straight up or on the rocks, with plenty of water in between...

...Alternately terrified and intrigued by his advances, Li'l Bit is a mixture of victim and unwitting temptress, not quite complicit in the affair—but not entirely blameless either...

...He is a plausible soul with a good job and an attractive wife...

...If you must, wet your face and head with tap water...

...let the beverage linger in your mouth—interspersed with interesting, fascinating conversation...

...To accomplish this most difficult task, the playwright tells her story in mosaie form—an accretion of small scenes leading to the truth...

...Sip, never slurp or gulp...

...Never drink on an empty stomach...

...When the seducer and his quarry converse, his voice emanates from his mouth...

...Indeed, the sole time his hand comes in contact with her torso is toward the end, and then only briefly...

...Still, as fine as these professionals are, the star of the evening remains Paula Vogel, a playwright who never gives in to the obvious...

...I've loved you since I could hold you in one hand," he confesses to his niece, and there is no reason to doubt his word...

...In the sticks of Maryland the narrator, Li'l Bit (Mary-Louise Parker), grows out while she grows up...

...She won't steer you wrong...

...You're less likely to feel hung over, no matter how much you ve consumed, and you can still get to work the next morning even on little or no sleep...

...The idea of love is treated as a four-letter word in these families, and children guiltily search for it the rest of their lives...

...The current best seller, TizeKiss, makes much of a deeply disturbed father-daughter relationship, and piles up royalties in the process...

...I don't like the way he looks at you," she warns her daughter...

...Moreover, in presenting what she calls a "Male, Female and Teenage Greek Chorus" (played by the supporting cast of three), Vogel shows how friends and family members can be, in the jargon of the moment, "enablers," people who either look the other way or bewilder the young with ignorant counsel...

...Stay with one all night long, like the man you came in with: bourbon, gin, or tequila 'til dawn...

...Paula Vogel's play begins as a diverting lecture in driver education as a high school student might perceive it—tips on how to hold the wheel, how to watch for oncoming traffic, how to turn and park...

...For now, try the small off-Broadway venue that houses How I Learned To Drive...

...Vogel is a major talent waiting for abig theater to display her wares...

...Time moves back and forth like sand in an hourglass, the light and emphasis constantly shifting...

...Don't order anything with Voodoo or Vixen in the title or sexual positions in the name like Dead Man, Screw or the Missionary...

...Jess Goldstein's deliberately tacky costumes, and Narelle Sissons' minimalist scenery lend an acute sense of time and place...

...But Vogel exhibits more than a talent for clinical analysis...

...Still, How I Learned To Drive, at the Vineyard Theater, more than compensates for lost time...

...Watching an outstanding cast perform them is comparable to sitting in on a session of fine jazz soloists, each waiting for a turn at the microphone...

...If you feel you have had more than your sufficiency in liquor, do go to the ladies room—often...

...In short, avoid anything with sugar or anything with an umbrella...

...If How I Learned to Drive focused only on this roiled relationship it would still be an outstanding effort...

...Meantime, Grandma (Kerry O'Malley) speaks of sex as a miserable burden carried by women down through the centuries...

...Believe me, they are lethal...

...It has been explored on television shows like NYPD Blue and Law and Order, exploited on Oprah and Sally Jessie Raphael, given hours of carefully lascivious attention on network and local news...

...Serious theater, usually the first art form to deal with difficult topics, is behind the curve in this matter...

...Yet Li'l Bit's responses are given by other members of the cast, giving the scene the quality of a dream happening to someone else...

...In telling a story that might easily have slipped into prurience, Vogel and director Mark Brokaw have taken a discreet, almost chaste approach...

...Peck's interest is hardly a secret...

...I think you were conceived after one of those...

...Get your vitamin C from fruit...

...Don't be afraid to dunk your head if necessary...

...In particular, "A Mother's Guide to Social Drinking," spoken by Mama to Li'l Bit, is a classic advisory to white-trash debutantes: "A lady never gets sloppy—she may, however, get tipsy and a little gay...

...Pop your head out-of-doors for a refreshing breath of the night air...

...All too soon, however, we learn that this is a metaphor for the life and times of a toxic family...

...How I Learned To Drive is in fact a scrupulous attempt to anatomize the drama of the abuser and the abused, and to see how such incidents occur en famille...

...another moment we may be listening to her mother's moral lectures or her Uncle's continuing pleas for intimacy...

...Stay away from ladies' drinks: drinks like Pink Ladies, Sloe Gin Fizzes, Daiquiris, Gold Cadillacs, Long Island Iced Teas, Margaritas, Pina Coladas, Grasshoppers, White Russians, Black Russians, Red Russians, Melon Balls, Blue Balls, Blue Hawaiians, Green Arkansans, Hummingbirds, Hemorrhages and Hurricanes...

...Oh, yes, and never mix your drinks...

...You'll need a wheelbarrow to carry them soon...

...Avail yourself of the bread basket and generous portions of butter...

...Sip your drink, slowly...

...Uncle Peck lies down on a hotel bed with Li'l Bit but we never see him do anything more than put an arm around her shoulder...

...He does indeed love the girl—and not just carnally...

...in the middle of the saddest scenes she evokes a laugh, and just when a moment seems to be edging on hilarity she introduces a wistful note that leaves the smiles frozen on the audience's faces...

...As complicit choristers, Duva, Day and O'Malley inhabit a variety of parts, ranging from juveniles to old folk...

...A wet woman is still less conspicuous than a drunk woman...

...Such carping misses the point: The kind of men who pursue the young are seldom testosterone-driven maniacs who advertise their intent...

...The tragedy that lies behind these admonitions, of course, is that while Mama is an encyclopedia on the subject of boozing, she knows next to nothing about sexual prédation—a lack that is to have dire consequences...

...Manifestly this situation is rife with disastrous possibilities, and most of them occur...

...At the epicenter of How I Learned To Drive, Parker is superb as a wide-eyed child, smoldering adolescent and marred adult...

...Her burgeoning figure becomes the star attraction for Uncle Peck (David Morse), who spends hours, days, weeks, and finally years, attempting to gain his niece's confidence...

...Slather the butter on your bread...

...The only person in her family ever to go on beyond high school, the restive and confused Li'l Bit finds it impossible to concentrate on her studies, drinks to excess, becomes the subject of campus gossip and innuendo, and finally gets expelled...

...It is from the scenes of verbal seduction that the play derives its greatest strength...

...Despite the colorful characters and southern locale, however, Paula Vogel is not some Erskine Caldwell for the'90s...

...But when Li ? Bit demurs, Mama cautions that "if anything happens, it will be your responsibility...

...As for her Neanderthal husband, much of his dinnertime conversation consists of tormenting Li'l Bit by commenting on the increasing size of her breasts...

...They may very well be the man next door, the uncle who dispenses driving lessons...

...Li'l Bit's mother (Johanna Day) is well aware of what runs beneath the surface of her brotherin-law's avid, overly polite concern...

...Sometimes it is 1969, and the girl is a mere child...

...For Uncle Peck is not the kind of heavy-breathing seducer who populates so many Movies of the Week...

...One moment we may see the teenager squirm at a dinnertime confrontation...

...His is an affection mixed with lust and insecurity and, as things progress, a fatal selfloathing...

...In every role they remain the same: that is to say, superb...

...Neither her plot nor her people are predictable...

...She has also composed a comedy of bad manners, with a series of memorable riffs...