How I Learned to Drive

I’m not going to lie. I didn’t finish this play until about an hour ago, so about a week after we were supposed to have posted about it.  So, I was there the day we discussed it in class. Laine said something really interesting in class that stuck in my mind as I was reading the play.  Her idea about the “Greek” chorus was that they were her memories.  Her main focus was the story between her and Uncle Peck. Everyone else involved was just a memory.  People were blurred together and faces weren’t engrained into her thoughts. Why would they be? With something so serious and life changing, their faces seem so trivial. 

Another thing I sort of though about was that they were “Vampires.” If you’ve ever seen/heard the musical [title of show], you’d catch my drift here. Vampires are anyone who tries to get in your way or tell you that what you’re doing isn’t right or good enough.  So for example, when Female Greek Chorus explains how to drink a certain way or how Male Greek Chorus tries to convince Li’l bit that college doesn’t matter and that “she’s got all the credentials she’ll need on her chest” (1595). They get in her head and she has to fight them away.

I guess something that didn’t make sense to me was how people let this go on. There was a whole monologue with Aunt Mary about how her husband was constantly used by women and she knew that Li’l bit was doing the same. Her mother knew it was inappropriate for her eleven year old daughter to be spending so much time alone in a car with an older, married man.  I’m sorry but this sort of thing is not okay by any means and is beyond frustrating.  I couldn’t handle some of this play because I was so flabbergasted by the way people reacted and just sort of brushed this aside without doing anything about it.  It isn’t okay under any circumstance! I guess Vogel’s purpose of this was to really get people to think and be disgusted the way I was. Other than that, I have no idea why or how something like this could happen.