The oldest and first dedicated online New York theater guide, Read news on over 150 Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, Follow us for the latest theater newsTwitter Facebook. The Artistic Home's production of Paula Vogel's Pultizer Prize-winning play is storefront theater at its very best. Drive On: A Review of Jitney at Congo Square Theatre. He is a misguided abuser surrounded with nothing but opportunity. Macbeth at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. A Lane Worth Staying In: A Review of How I Learned to Drive at The Artistic Home The Artistic Home's production of Paula Vogel's Pultizer Prize-winning play is storefront theater at its very best. It was in close, as in very close, proximity to her uncle Peck (Norbert Leo Butz) who was pretty much there from the minute she was born. It’s one of the great feel-good clichés of storytelling. By Dee Jae Cox It’s a given that theatre often mirrors society and culture. You’ll feel good in the way you do when two well-cast actors at the top of their games achieve a piercing transparency. Raven Theatre, 6157 North Clark, (773)338-2177, A Lane Worth Staying In: A Review of How I Learned to Drive at The Artistic Home. Maddeningly or otherwise, L’il Bit’s crises — and, happily, her redemption — are common currency in 2019. The memories that are brought to life are those of the narrator, Li’l Bit (Reaser), a grown woman looking back on her white-trash family and rural upbringing in Maryland in the 1960s and ’70s. Some plays take time to come into their own but they’re well worth a wait. The crude and controlling courtship of this peckerwood loser remains consistently predatory. These are people for whom Li’l Bit’s most salient characteristic (and weapon, and burden) is her chest size. (Ben Kaye). And her earlier, effortful blankness started to make sense as a kind of self-protection, for Ms. Reaser commits unconditionally to the precocious flirtatiousness within Li’l Bit, a prematurely buxom girl who is both highly intelligent and unknowing. Saying “I love you” (and for the record, he means it) does the trick. Everyone from a frightened boy at a dance to a crotchey grandfather are given the full spread of cards that good men deserve. Stuck On Desire: A Review of Natural Affection at Eclipse Theatre Company. Her confession, powerfully revived in artistic director Cody Estle’s staging for Raven Theatre, is insistently told through car metaphors of cruising, driving, and stripping gears and illustrated — brilliantly — by Tony Churchill’s projections of 1960s auto ads. Tony Kiser Theater at Second Stage Theater, Elizabeth Reaser and Norbert Leo Butz in "How I Learned to Drive. In the age of #Metoo, it is important to note that sexual harassment and abuse of women and girls is not a new phenomenon. It can feel at times as if director Cody Estle and projections designer Tony Churchill thought we needed that little extra jumpstart to understand each scene. "Ben Brantley for New York Times, "Delivers an emotional wallop. It is an […] Sign up for Newcity's weekly newsletters: Sign Up for Weekly Updates on Chicago Theater + Dance, Copyright Newcity Communications, Inc. © 2020. Still, it packs a wallop. It was in close, as in very close, proximity to her uncle Peck (Norbert Leo Butz) who was pretty much there from the minute she was born. "Michael Sommers for Newsroom Jersey, "Still packs an emotional wallop. Whoriskey’s production is significant because it goes out of its way to acknowledge that complicity. © Copyright 2020 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. It looks great when it is sitting still, but don’t bet on it going anywhere. He is a destructive monster; he is also a destroyed man. Playing outside their comfort zones, Elizabeth Reaser (“Twilight,” “Grey’s Anatomy”) and Norbert Leo Butz (two-time Tony winner for “Catch Me If You Can” and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”) sensitively establish the intense, if unhealthy rapport between a sympathetic pedophile and the niece who learns more than she needs to know from him. Li’l Bit was surely abused during those driving lessons, but she also earned her independence by learning how to handle a car — and the man who taught her how to drive. For 100 minutes we’re forced to face an elaborate violation of innocence by a supposedly trustworthy relation, a soul-shrinking that’s sickening in its drive to destroy. It is embodied by a piquant chorus of three performers — Kevin Cahoon, Jennifer Regan and Marnie Schulenburg — who play Li’l Bit’s schoolmates and family members. And that’s exactly as it should be. No, it’s the strained push-and-pull between the devastatingly emotional performances onstage and the larger-than-life projection design, which removes any hint of subtlety from the scenes. Which pretty much guarantees that we haven’t seen the last of Li’l Bit and Uncle Peck, or resolved the mysteries of their relationship. Their storytelling is emotionally resonant and exists as the heart of this “Drive.” If only there wasn’t the constant impulse to shine a light on an image we can already see, clear as day. Children like him, love him, and why not? Vogel has penned a shocking play on a distressing subject, but the subtlety of her writing and the ambiguity of her themes leave the play open to any number of interpretations. So do we, thanks to Mr. Butz. Read Next: ‘What the Constitution Means to Me’ Review: Heidi Schreck Gives Audiences Even More Reasons to Vote, ‘Girl From the North Country’: Theater Review, Brian Wilson Disavows Trump’s Beach Boys Benefit in California (EXCLUSIVE), Beastie Boys License a Song for an Ad for First Time Ever, for Joe Biden Spot Focused on Live Music Shutdown, ‘Avengers’ Cast Assembles for Joe Biden Fundraiser, ‘The Vow’: What Happened to Keith Raniere, Allison Mack and Other Key Figures, ‘The Vow’: What the Finale’s Surprise Twist Means for Season 2, Bruce Willis Stars in Commercial for ‘Die Hard’ Car Batteries, Vishal Bhardwaj Sets up Agatha Christie Indian Film Franchise (EXCLUSIVE). If you do happen into the theatre, however, all is not lost. "How I Learned to Drive," which won Paula Vogel the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 (and hasn't been seen in New York since), is one of those plays you don't forget in a hurry. By then we feel both locked into, and complicit with, this portrait of a warping relationship. From the start this Maryland girl is mired in ignorance — no sex talks from an emotionally M.I.A. The premiere of Antoinette Nwandu's new comedy at Victory Gardens is no laughing matter, literally. Anna Jordan's play, receiving its local premiere at Raven, examines toxic masculinity in terms of maternal care and its absence. He held her in his hand that day. A thrilling Broadway premiere. Estle’s work with this cast is the true strength of this production, creating a sense of unity and clarity in the tight-knit ensemble. With a vengeance and a mission, the author of The Baltimore Waltz, The Long Christmas Ride Home, and And Baby Makes Seven details a protracted sex crime in a broken family. Mr. Butz is equally effective in a warm and chilling monologue in which he teaches his young (unseen) nephew how to fish and in his mute but profoundly eloquent reactions in Peck’s last encounter with Li’l Bit, when his future seems as incisively etched as words on a gravestone. That's So Raven: A Review of The Gentleman Caller at Raven Theatre Language-heavy, plot-light and emotionally fraught, this world premiere from Philip Dawkins finds an ideal home at Raven Theatre. This deeply gifted actor is a specialist in good ol’ boys of deceptive simplicity. Her performance is worth the price of admission. As Li’l Bit invites us to enter her past, Ms. Reaser, who is best known for film and television (the “Twilight” movies, “Grey’s Anatomy”), seems almost too defiantly neutral in her delivery. And the climactic hotel room scene where Peck has shown up to celebrate Li’l Bit’s eighteenth birthday is undercut by the backdrop of a pile of evacuation plan maps. But I warmed to the actress who became the girl that her character was. Some stories don’t need that explicit of a road map. It’s just too tempting to “go over the line” when no one drew any lines for L’il Bit. This creature is L’il Bit’s uncle by marriage, yoked to a wife (Kathryn Acosta) who will stand by her man in the worst way (including blaming his victim). And in her evocation of Li’l’ Bit’s former selves, we feel the guilt that still holds the character captive. Vogel’s boldest stroke in this provocative play is to discard the common image of the pedophile as drooling monster and present him as he more often is — disturbingly human and all too real. Try not to do what you shouldn’t do, and if you cannot manage that, at least don’t get caught and shame your family. Some plays take time to come into their own but they’re well worth a wait. Ms. Vogel, who has since won renown as a teacher of young dramatists, dared to mix a host of theatrical elements here: Brechtian scene titles, styled after the chapter headings of a driver’s education manual; self-conscious use of illusion; strategically scrambled chronology; cartoonish comic exaggeration, as well as dialogue that sounds so naturalistic that you think that it comes from your own remembrance of things past. How I Learned to Drive is a story about a young girl, Li’l Bit (Alyssa Wilmoth Keegan), who suffers at the hands of her pedophilic Uncle Peck (Peter O’Connor), but it is broader and deeper than that. In separate interviews, the four collaborators spoke recently about the history of “How I Learned to Drive,” evolving awareness of sexual trauma … And her face lights up like candles on a birthday cake. Stage and Cinema Reviews Theater, Dance, Music, Etc. Sure, the showier sins of a Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey or Bill Cosby trigger appropriate disgust but, as Vogel depicts, pedophilia begins at home. And the source of this dullness is our narrator, Li’l Bit (Elizabeth Reaser), who is about to tell us of the way that she learned to drive. In our last review, the late critic Harold Clurman bewails the state of the theater with "If I'm moved once during a performance I consider myself lucky. How many variations on that scene have you experienced at the theater or the movies? Telling one tough tale truly, Vogel could not have guessed in 1997 how vital this literally driving drama would prove to be today. Remembering, for Li’l Bit, becomes a means of revenge, accusation, investigation and understanding. As the Male Greek Chorus Kevin Cahoon spans generations of men. Stoughton magnificently tempers L’il Bit’s pathetic vulnerability with a plucky practicality that defies the worst. When she turns 18, his happiness will be complete — and it won’t be statutory rape. That’s thanks to the consciousness-raising of #MeToo, among other seismic changes in the body politic. 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