How I learned to drive

Li’l Bit narrates her history through a series of non-linear driving lessons conducted by her Uncle Peck between the years of 1962 and 1978. The play documents a grooming process where Peck utilizes the physical enclosure of a car to enact sexual abuse under the guise of instruction and emotional support. Vogel uses the metaphor of the steering wheel to track Li’l Bit’s struggle for autonomy within a dysfunctional Maryland family that ignores the predation. The script utilizes a Greek chorus to play supporting family members and provides specific technical cues for projection and music to distance the audience from the depicted trauma.

This text serves students of modern drama and actors looking for complex protagonist roles that require shifting between childhood and adulthood. Readers study this work to understand how non-chronological structures and alienation effects can be used to portray sensitive psychological material. The play offers a technical blueprint for staging internal memory and the long-term effects of domestic manipulation. By the end, the reader sees how a victim internalizes the skills of their abuser to eventually navigate their own survival and physical escape.