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The following post is a summation of notes that I and several other playwrights took at a recent gathering of local playwrights where-in we shared our experiences and thoughts on each of our trips across the country to national events. The events included: the Dramatists Guild’s first ever conference: “Playwrights in Mind: A National Conversation” at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia; One Theatre World 2011, a conference on Theater for Young Audiences hosted by Seattle Children’s Theatre; the WordBRIDGE Playwright’s Laboratory at Towson University near Baltimore, Maryland; and the Theater Communication Group Conference: TCG at 50: What if…, in Los Angeles, California. In addition to reporting back on our experiences at the conferences, thoughts were shared on other topics throughout the evening.

Dramatists Guild

“Playwrights in Mind” convened at George Mason University, June 9-12, Fairfax, Virginia. Under the dynamic leadership of Gary Garrison, DG’s Executive Director for Creative Affairs, the conference was judged a huge success. Estimated attendance: 350. This number included a stunning array of national talent: among them, Craig Carnelia, Kirsten Childs, Christopher Durang, Carol Hall, Mark Hollmann, David Ives, Greg Kotis, Emily Mann, Susan Miller, Marsha Norman, Jeffrey Sweet, Stephen Schwartz, Georgia Stitt, and Doug Wright. All of the presenters, including several DG staff and artists from all over the country, kept the momentum going, sharing a generous mix of craft/career advice and creative inspiration.

Faye [Sholiton]:  The first national conference of the Dramatists Guild was truly a national celebration of playwrights, composers, musicians and creators of live theatre. The organization (with 22 regions and more anticipated) is now a major presence around the country. Each region hosts meetings, workshops and other events, many of which draw national officials as presenters. Regional reps exchanged ideas on programming and ways to utilize local resources and visiting artists. The guild is committed to building a supportive and enthusiastic theatre community. It was made clear that the goal is not so much about membership recruitment as it is about community building – and that we are more concerned about providing service and support than setting attendance records.

Faye mentioned that she would like story ideas for the Dramatist; she has recently written about Mike Oatman and the Cleveland Arts Prize.  The story is told of Oatman’s new black T-shirt for the event.

Discussion turned to reporting some things about the DG conference, including that of the DG website upgrades, and comments were made regarding the session at the George Mason conference about the website.

Mention was made that the restrictions on membership in the Dramatists Guild have been loosened.  I am not sure about this area of the notes as I am not familiar with the former requirements regarding Broadway productions, etc.  But, as I understand it, one now need only show a program and pay an increased fee to be eligible for higher membership levels.

There was general agreement that Gary Garrison is a dynamic and vibrant leader, and that leaders determine or predict the success and direction of an organization and that Gary is a positive force.

Here Deb took over and started discussing her experience at the Dramatists Guild conference with an initial discussion of Jeffrey Sweet and his talk “Improvising your Play.”  And the encouragement to improvise your play off of an outline.  Lots of sessions, interviews, interactives, lectures, a mix.

On Christopher Durang: “This is your life” and his talk never got past 1978. 

A lot of talks and sessions on craft and theory, nuts and bolts of the business, working with and agent, without an agent, negotiation techniques, mythology in playwriting.  Karen Hall was there and on the panel and she really knew her business.  Adaptation panel.

Deb [Magid] came back extremely energized.

Deb mentioned America Now and Here: http://americanowandhere.org/ and Marsha Norman, Jon Robin Baitz, twenty-one playwrights. Arts at the center in dealing with the consequence of 9/11 and the subsequent effect on the American psyche – xenophobia, etc.

Deb discussed how Todd London depressed everyone with his talk, but then lifted everyone (or attempted to) in the last 5 minutes, with regard to the state of the theater and the playwrights in it. (Outrageous Fortune)

Deb went to the Haiku Project.  Very engaging as it was a playwright and a visual artist.  Looked at the visual perspective: forms, rhythm, structure, color; and then at the storytelling perspective.

Everyone was massively energized by the event.  Another workshop or session used clippings in a bag as the writing prompt: color, name of a relative, etc.  Deb noted that something there spoke to someone—there was a great array offered such that all comers had the opportunity to get something out of the conference.  Play readings, Theater of the First Amendment. http://www.theaterofthefirstamendment.org/

Deb mentioned that, and then undertook a serious effort to find, all of the sessions that were recorded from the DG conference. (See links)

Tom [Hayes] talked next.  The big take away for him from the Dramatists Guild meeting is that playwrights need to get off their butts and start producing their own work.  There is too much reliance on old models, which aren’t working any more for the majority of playwrights.  Theaters have piles of scripts/synopses that they can’t get through, they rarely select works that are new and look for playwrights with track records for success or “old” playwrights or adaptations or other means of getting people into theaters that don’t take into consideration new voices and new perspectives—so, if you want your work produced you better get rid of any passive notions you have about sitting back while a director and actors and others create your play because increasingly it will be the writer finding space, finding a director (or directing), running the lights or sound, etc.  The do-it-yourself era is upon us. And in many ways this is a good thing—a freeing thing.  And it offers the possibility of getting in touch with the “let’s pretend” portion of our psyches that existed when we were children and making plays and acting in plays and staging them was something that was fun and not something drab and political and merciless.

Tom went to quite a few talks by Ralph Sevush, Executive Director of Business Affairs for the Dramatists Guild.  Sevush talked quite a bit about copyright, other people’s property, and subsidiary rights.  All of these talks Tom discusses at length on his blog (http://www.weebelly.com).  The conversation at the meeting took off a bit on some issues, including the claims by director John Rando that he owned the stage directions to Urinetown; and the way subsidiary rights can eat away at the production potential of plays.

Tom also discussed the keynote talk by Julie Jordan on Gender Parity in the theater, which was an emotional talk that stuck with him.

Finally, Tom briefly mentioned the notion of creating Web Series (Susan Miller’s talk); that is, writing television for the web and a project that he is working on with a peer to create episodic pieces for the theater (i.e. television for theater); working under the name Illiterite Theatre (with the tagline “theater that will rot your brain”).

Faye discussed her interview with Doug Wright and said how it killed her not to be able to take notes while he was speaking. She highlighted some of his insights, including his statement about the role of the artist: that we are the most uncompromising moral force today, more than all those institutions set up to give us guidance. Wright talked about how he initially feared that a stage production of Grey Gardens would destroy the very thing that made the movie so wonderful: its verisimilitude. And how two years later, the collaborators had a draft of the play. On Quills Wright noted that the positioning of Jesse Helms and Robert Maplethorpe was very influential—that they were painted as opposites and yet their antagonism (from the perspective of the press) worked out very well for both of them.  Here was one of Wright’s true zingers, that the “censor is the most reliable muse.”  Also, Wright talked about the importance of The Little Mermaid to the transgender community because they can identify with the fact that you have to change what is below your waist in order to find true love. (Quotes available at http://www.pdc1.org/viewthisblog.php?post=129)

Faye attended the Dream Workshop and is a big proponent of writing down dreams.  She mentioned that she received a worksheet on dreams and creativity which perhaps she will share.

Faye noted the Spirit of Giving that was present.  That staff would race to get copies of materials that ran out.  There were troubleshooters everywhere.  There were instances when there were too many people for a space and so the location was immediately changed and everyone just got up and moved. 

Faye mentioned that she has some of Doug Wright’s scripts which are signed and that perhaps they can be raffled off to raise $$ for local DG programming.  Faye is adamant that there will be no $$ charged for any DG event.

General commentary from those who went to the DG ensued discussing how impressive it was that each of the notable writers went to each other’s sessions and sat in the audience.   That they were very approachable and open to people when they came up to talk with them.

Several speakers addressed how to self-produce theatre, noting this is becoming a national trend. Faye is hoping to organize a DIY workshop in the coming months for the Ohio Region.

There was general discussion about whether or not it is permissible to use your own student’s life in your plays…that is, a student whom you’re teaching tells you his/her stories, can you use them?

Faye discussed David Ives approach to playwriting, which apparently includes his knowing the ending of the play before he starts.  Lively discussion followed with speculation as to whether or not Shakespeare knew the end of his play before writing…or Stoppard, for that matter.

One Theatre World 2011

Jacqi Loewy, Assistant Professor of Communication and Theatre, Notre Dame College, discussed her trip to Seattle for the One Theatre World 2011 conference on Theater for Young Audiences, hosted by Seattle Children’s Theatre.  Besides Tim Webb (who was the Keynote Speaker), workshops/speakers of note: Steven Dietz, Laurie Brooks and Garry Golden. It’s iTheatrics who produce the Musical in a Day workshops.

Jacqi, being responsible for a theater program, felt that NE Ohio did not need another theater program, per se, but could use a theater program for Young Audiences.

Jacqi noted that the first person she saw at the conference was Colleen Porter from Playhouse Square.  Jacqi described the experience as energizing and amazing.

Highlights:

A workshop with Tim Webb, from Oily Cart, in England. (www.oilycart.org.uk ) They work with kids with profound disabilities, using all the senses.  Seeing many live performances and enjoying talkbacks. Learning about groups with success stories. Of note: Book It Productions (www.book-it.org), teaches literacy through drama. And one group mounted a memorable one-time performance of ANNIE – in a single day.

Plays tend to revolve around “issues” i.e. drugs. TYA identified bullying as a theme deserving of everyone’s focus. Every company pledged to create a program on the subject over the two years, until they convene again. Anti-drug plays continue to be a theme as well.

There were teachers teaching literacy via theater (i.e. theater of the people or People Theater, a la Augusto Boal.

Jacqi was enthusiastic as she met people who are doing what she wants to do and that they were very open to sharing and she felt compelled to hit the ground running before someone else “does it here.”

There were a lot of performances. Wed – Sat. Every day, every hour – a play was being done.  Sign up. See. Feedback, talkbacks. Kaiser Permanente was convinced to give $$ up front for a theater group to write whatever.  Corporations want in on the education bandwagon. Arts are the way to educate.

There was the question as to who owns the work (art) once it’s done.  Essentially and up-front question: is it work for hire or is the artist being given a grant to create work.  Many corporations want to re-use the work, so it is work for hire and branded and once the piece is done it belongs to the company that paid for it.

Jacqi mentioned that she started her career as a TYA actor in New York (Bugs Bunny and Wonder Woman)—many equity actors get their start this way. Academic perspective she was prepared…?

Commentary about Seattle being a big theater place in the 90s; that Seattle was big for everything in the 90s (Microsoft, grunge music, theater, arts, etc).  Jacqi was blunt about the notion that B-City people view themselves as being deprived, but she is impressed at how much opportunity there is—in both Seattle and Cleveland and that artists just need to get up and motivate and do-it-yourself. Which brings us back to one take away from the Dramatists Guild conference.

Not a lot of TYA is being taught at the university level, although University of Texas (Austin) has a large program. They invited others to come and see what they do. This participant attended the conference to begin a program at a Cleveland-area college.

Although finances remain the biggest obstacle to presenting children’s theatre, there is one hopeful trend: the corporate world is discovering the value of theatre/arts in education, and corporations are getting on the education bandwagon. Playwrights are being awarded commissions from $3,000 to $20,000 to write for kids. Sometimes this means that the playwright must relinquish ownership of the work and many have done so. Companies want to use the work to establish a brand.

The final message of the meeting: collaboration: look for other companies for co-production. An out-of-town match is best. Share designers, directors. Great creative possibilities as well as cost savings.

For more information on Theatre for Young Audiences, visit www.tyausa.org

WordBRIDGE / TOWSON, MD

This program is organized annually to grant its full resources to a handful of selected MFA candidates working in playwriting. This year (for the first time), it was held in Towson, MD, under the direction of David White. The event lasted about 2-1/2 weeks.

WordBridge invites a small group of playwrights annually – this year, it was four. They bring work in need of development, doing rewrites, consulting with experts in multiple disciplines. They revise some more, rehearse, under the guidance of a dramaturg. What sets this program apart is the consultant list: more than 40 people with expertise in everything from music, movement, theatre, and design to mathematics and psychology. All of them offered insights into the works in progress and fueled the creative process.

Our participant, a WordBRIDGE alumnus, was one of the dramaturg/mentors. He described how a mathematician created a three-dimensional vision of one of the plays, allowing the writer to see the work in new ways. A psychologist weighed in on behavioral issues. Multiple actors read the same words so the playwright could hear different interpretations. Graphic artists offered program designs to demonstrate how the story could be illustrated.

And then the artist could keep returning to the drawing board. Said the mentor, it’s the one chance you’ve got as a playwright to have total control over your own work: you have the power to replace the director, the dramaturg, the cast.

The process ended with readings of the revised works. Said the mentor, “I never thought I could feel so proud of a play that wasn’t my play.”

Committed to making the program as free from the pressure of making a “final product” as possible, WordBRIDGE keeps the process private. No public feedback mars the creative process, at least in this stage of development.

A special bonus was meeting foreign visitors who brought a different aesthetic to the process. They also gave updates on theatre abroad. The group learned that colleagues working in Hungary, for example, must deal with a right-wing government that has begun outing gays and Jews. The constitution, newly rewritten, has legitimized this sentiment, leaving theatres latitude to produce plays with only one theme: “All theatre has to be about hope,” said one visiting director. Small theatres cannot sustain themselves under the new restrictions. For updates, visit: www.hungarianwatch.wordpress.com.

WordBRIDGE provides travel, housing and meals for all participants. Funding comes largely from alumni of the program. This year, Center Stage provided actor housing. 

And the work of local artists was also featured, a nod to the huge community effort that produced the program.

THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP / L.A.

TCG had its biggest-ever conference, with 1100 attendees. A pre-conference meeting brought an estimated 125-200 participants. The setting was citywide, with the central venue the Biltmore Hotel. This did not always work in the conference’s favor, since the events were widely scattered and the neighborhoods unfamiliar. 

Among the highlights:

RADAR L.A. was in full-swing, the West Coast’s answer to the Under the Radar Festival in NYC. Ten plays ran in rep and featured Western and Southwestern themes.

Julie Taymor was celebrated in an interview that included film of her astonishing body of work. Few had seen what she created in Japan, for example. And it was enlightening to see how she transferred what she had created for stage to the big screen. Looking past the recent Spiderman debacle, one could only marvel at her contributions to the art of scenic design.

For one attendee, the highlight was a session about measuring the value of live theatre. Following the earlier model (“Gift of the Muse”) study in 2004, which was largely anecdotal, they are now evaluating audience response by examining the “intrinsic impact.”  (visit www.intrinsicimpact.org)

Audience members in several theatres have been asked to fill out surveys following a live production. They are asked to evaluate what they have just seen using several criteria:

• How captivated they were
• Intellectual stimulation
• Aesthetic growth
• Spiritual connection
• Emotional resonance
• Social Bonding

These questions should be asked with any play under production consideration as they look at so many levels of impact. Moreover, the list makes us think of our own work – how would we score on the scale with any given script? One participant returned to Cleveland to distribute the questions to the artists involved in the season just ended and to the resident playwrights’ group.

One attendee noted that breakout sessions sometimes devolved into grousing sessions. Artists remain consumed with getting agents, whom they assume will assure them productions.

On the other hand, there were sublime moments. At the top of the list, an appearance by Mrs. Smith, a performance artist who (when the dowdy costume comes off) is David Hanbury. His character, matron/patron of the theatre, dropped in on a session entitled “You Call That Theatre?” that featured non-traditional forms in unusual venues. She feigned outrage at all that this so-called “theatre” is doing to ruin her enjoyment.

How dare they destroy the only art form that can deliver “the act of communal sleeping,” she railed.  Don’t ask her to turn her chair around, or go sit in an abandoned garage. Audiences like coming to a place where they are safe for two hours – to sleep.

Hanbury, who tours his solo shows, also appeared on behalf of a telethon for people and cats with severe and persistent emotional challenges. His appearances, as much as any, reminded everyone of the thrill we experience when we are taken by surprise and don’t know how something’s going to come out.

Much attention was paid to getting younger people interested in attending theatre. To set that scene, experts spoke of the current generation of teens who now send some 4,000 text messages per month (if they’re female, anyway). A key speaker was David Houle, author of The Shift Age. He spoke about the future – a time we already know has seen time and space broken down. We are digital now.

Think of people over 20 as the new “immigrants.” We will never get back the distinctions of the pre-digital era. Kids under 15 are the “natives.”

It’s not all bad news for us immigrants. There is an unprecedented awareness of what’s going on in the world, and how it relates to “me.” Kids have a sense now that “I am important, but so is that kid in Bolivia.”

And for all the seeming disconnection, look at how teens now express affection. Years ago, guys would hug only after a touchdown. Kids now hug A LOT.

The trend is moving toward devised theatre, according to those who attended the pre-conference. For some time, that kind of writing was being done in an ensemble, coming out of improvisation, with no author listed. Now, these groups are trending toward using playwrights and giving credit.

Follow these and other trends in upcoming issues of American Theatre magazine. 

I’ll pick up from where I left off with the previous essay, regarding Paula Vogel’s play How I Learned to Drive; specifically, I’ll consider some of the techniques that have attracted me to this play and their meaning, as suggested by a few critical articles.

In the previous essay I discussed that I have been struggling for some time with the shape of a play that I’ve been working on. As well, there was some mention of the notion that the form of a play is what is important. This suggestion was confirmed repeatedly in the two critical articles that I read on Drive which focused expressly on the need for a unique form in which to tell the story, necessary to subvert not only Vogel’s own authorial voice, but to ensure that the audience doesn’t come away with a pre-conceived understanding based on the form of the play itself. As Stevenson notes in her essay:

The form discovered by Paula Vogel for Li’l Bit’s revelation of her secret affirms this multiplicity [of bodies on stage, of voices, of perspectives], and allows Li’l Bit to tell her story without being reduced to the fictitious unity that a realist form would enforce. (Stevenson, 244)

Again, I have heard much description of postmodern art forms that discuss the form as meaning, and after reading these two critical articles alone I have come to understand how form works to create meaning in Drive. Structurally, stylistically, vocally, image, symbol, language, and in use of space Vogel controls how meaning is constructed, and is not afraid to lower her own authorial voice to the level of the voices of her characters and thus give equal presentation, weight, and value to all the voices both in the play and outside it. (Kimbrogh, 97)

The main techniques that lead to formal subversion or the revisioning of structure include: disruption (of time, theme, memory); multiplicity of voices; Brechtian techniques and stage techniques; changes of generic modes; and even the assertion by Kimbrough that the play itself is a polyphonic form:

I propose that Vogel treats dramatic form as polyphonic. She employs tragedy, comedy, realism, and epic stagecraft in different scenes for purposes of audience affect, but she does not allow one style or genre to dominate the form of the play or to completely shape audience perspective…genres are really forms of thinking that shape ideology…subverting ideology or thematic reception is to subvert genre. In applying defacilitation to genre, Vogel succeeds in creating polyphony of dramatic form. (Kimbrough, 100)

Disruption is one of the most significant techniques used by Vogel in How I Learned to Drive. This disruption takes on many forms throughout the play, and there will be great crossover in singling out any one technique per the above list. But Stevenson points to perhaps the single greatest disruption and the one that is essential in forcing the form of the play: namely the disruption to body image that Li’l Bit endures as a function of her sexual abuse. This disruption is most powerfully demonstrated to the audience at the end of the play when the first instance of the sexual abuse is shown on stage. Li’l Bit states that, “That day was the last day I lived in my body.” [Vogel, 90] Stevenson cites, throughout her article, evidence regarding how sexual abuse victims conceive of themselves, foremost being the sense of separation from their physical body. Thus, it is no accident that Vogel places such a strong emphasis on parts of the body and Li’l Bit’s alienation from them and her own body. As well, it is equally to be noted that throughout the play various stage techniques and Brechtian devices are employed to dislocate the audience and ensure that the broken conception of character is experienced and understood. Two simple examples of this dislocation and disruption by use of stage technique include the “erotic” photo shoot with Peck as the photographer and Li’l Bit as the object and the scene that reveals the first instance of the sexual abuse of Li’l Bit. The former scene uses the contrasting visual forms of the “live” photo shoot involving Peck and Li’l Bit, however, over the top of this scene is layered the visual images of women cast as slides. This projection of visual images of models contrasted with the live shoot on the stage serves to demonstrate the alienation between the lived life of the subject (Li’l Bit) and the alien perception of body that has been projected onto her. The latter scene employs what, up to this point, has been a “Greek Chorus” character to act as the voice of Li’l Bit while the “narrator” character acts out the first instance of sexual abuse. As Stevenson points out, from both a stage craft and Brechtian viewpoint, a lot is going on in this scene: the narrator character is at once the 35-year-old narrator of the play that the audience has become used to, but is also the 11-year-old Li’l Bit who was first abused in 1962. So the dual stage layers of the character are present and this metatheatrical device serves to dislocate any attachment that the audience might feel toward any particular instance of the character. But then the third layer is thrown in: that of the Greek Chorus female acting as the voice for Li’l Bit as an 11-year-old. Thus we see that the separation of voice and body is here enacted clearly on stage, and that there are three representations of Li’l Bit present for the audience to consider. This multiplicity of character and actors, as well as the separation between action and voice compound the meaning of the scene and demonstrate the complexity of what has happened to Li’l Bit as result of the sexual abuse, as well as create a very complicated stage image for the audience to sort through: that is, the audience is not given a simple linear set of events to contemplate easily. And the above only represents two examples of the complexity that Vogel creates to disrupt the narrative presentation of events in Drive; and, it should be noted, these disruptions are, at least, three dimensional: manifesting in character, space, and time.

Closely related to the disruption mentioned above, is multiplicity of voice, which serves to disrupt audience experience of the events, but also to provide a more complex understanding of the content of the play itself. The multiple representations of time and space in Drive are representative of Mikhail Bakhtin. In her essay, “Bakhtin, Temporality, and Modern Narrative: Writing ‘the Whole Triumphant Murderous Unstoppable Chute’,” Stacy Burton considers three lesser-explored concepts of M. M. Bakhtin’s critical theory: the chronotope, heterochrony, and heteroglossia; and the significance these concepts have to the critical understanding of modem fiction. Chronotopes are “conceptions of time and space… [that] determine ‘to a significant degree the image of a person in literature.’” (Burton 1996, 45) The chronotope is also understood to be “the key term in [Bakhtin’s] discussion of time and narrative.” (Burton 1996, 43) The essence of the chronotope is twofold: it contains a temporal component and a spatial component, both of which defines a character within a novel and impacts the narrative, these ideas are readily applicable to theater. The temporal component can loosely be defined as the placement of the character within time, and the spatial component can be understood to be the physical placement of the character within space—also known as “framing” or “viewpoint.” Thus, within a novel whose attached narration is concerned with a character’s action in the present tense, the character’s chronotope can be understood to be the “now” and “here”—that is, current time and current physical space. This, however, is a simplistic representation of a chronotope, as within a novel or play multiple chronotopes can be present at one time, as demonstrated by the very first scene of Li’l Bit’s sexual abuse. Each character will manifest his or her own chronotope and each narrative strand will manifest its own distinct viewpoint. It is this aspect of the play that greatly increases its complexity, for as M. M. Bakhtin notes:

“. . .the modern novel, sensing itself on the border between two languages, one literary, the other extraliterary, each of which now knows heteroglossia, also senses itself on the border of time: it is extraordinarily sensitive to time in language, it senses time’s shifts, the aging and renewing of language, the past and the future—and all in language.” (Bakhtin et al. 1988, 67)

What is true of the novel is also true of chronotopes—as the character of Li’l Bit in the revelation of her sexual abuse, suddenly makes manifest several chronotopes (her at 35, 11, and the disembodied voice)—which is not including that of the audience member, who brings his or her own ‘narrative strand’ to the theater. Added to this is the presence within a narrative viewpoint of multiple expressions of time: “Bakhtin amplifies these early hints about multiple chronotopes and proposes the outlines of a more complex theory of narrative temporality. Here he describes the world as fundamentally multitemporal, or ‘heterochronous.’ Within any narrative, he explains in a crucial passage, several chronotopes may be at work:

Chronotopes are mutually inclusive, they co-exist, they may be interwoven with, replace or oppose one another, contradict one another or find themselves in ever more complex interrelationships. . . The general characteristic of these interactions is that they are dialogical (in the broadest sense of the word)… (this dialogue) enters the world of the author, of the performer, and the world of the listeners and readers. And all these worlds are chronotopic as well.” (Burton 1996, 47)

Plainly put, within any narrative moment, multiple time references may be present, as well as multiple points of view and conceptions of time. As if this weren’t enough, per what is mentioned in the quoted section above, the presence of a character, an author, a performer, and listeners introduces one of many possible dialogues that can exist in a narrative—that is, instances of multiple voices speaking to one another. This possibility extends equally to characters within a play, as Vogel demonstrates, and introduces the concept of heteroglossia (polyphony). What is most interesting about the various representations of voice, however, is that Vogel is willing to give characters un-inhibited freedom in expressing themselves which complicates the understanding of the audience: that is, there is no easy way to label any one character as “good” or “bad” or “right” or “wrong” which leads to Kimbrough’s assertion that Vogel is an ethical playwright. (Kimbrough, 94) One of the starkest examples of this at work in Drive, pointed out by Kimbrough, is that with Aunt Mary, Peck’s wife. Kimbrough writes:

the polyphony affords the greatest depth of character in the person of Peck’s wife, Aunt Mary. In a monologue towards the end of the play, Vogel allows Mary to speak for herself for the first time. Earlier, in the first family scene, Li’l Bit remembers and presents her aunt as a woman who is totally unaware that something festers in the relationship between Li’l Bit and Peck…But in her monologue, Mary contradicts her niece’s memory. She says, speaking for herself, “And I want to say this about my niece. She’s a sly one, that one is. She knows exactly what she’s doing; she’s twisted Peck around her little finger and thinks it’s all a big secret.” Through polyphony Vogel not only allows characters to speak for themselves, but she disrupts audience perception. She forces audiences to ask themselves anew what they think of situations and relationships that they are constantly assessing through different points of view…Vogel also gives spectators permission to doubt that the truth of Li’l Bit’s story may not be entirely accurate.” [Kimbrough, 102-3]

Brechtian techniques as well as stage techniques have already been mentioned, though it will do to mention one other Brechtian technique that Kimbrough draws attention to: namely the presence in Drive of multiple generic forms and the use of single actors to instantiate multiple characters in the play. Kimbrough notes that, “an ensemble of three actors…play all of the other characters in the play. But the characters…do not resemble the realistic characters presented in Li’l Bit and Peck. Because the ensemble portrays at least three different characters each, they cannot be cast close to type. Instead, the family members are personified through minimal use of stage signifiers–properties, behaviors, and the like–that indicate a character type, even stereotype.” [Kimbrough, 98-9] A common technique used to alienate the audience by undermining emotional attachment to any one character. But Kimbrough also notes, more interestingly, the inclusion of multiple generic forms in the play, that affect audience experience of events: “all of the scenes with Li’l Bit and Peck are presented in the style of Stanislavskian realism…in contrast, all of the other scenes and characters are interpreted by the ensemble…the scenes resemble Brechtian epic stagecraft in that the actors do not strive to create fully realized and detailed characters…the realistic scenes with Peck are, for the most part, serious and dramatic; the ensemble scenes are comedic.” [Kimbrough, 99]. In fact, Kimbrough and Stevenson both point to the presence of multiple genres in the single play: comedy, drama, memory play, and even mystery–that is, we are led to believe, at the beginning, that we are seeking a secret or the discovery of something undisclosed or hidden. Kimbrough even points to the inclusion of the Greek Chorus as an indicator that this play, on a level, functions as a Greek Tragedy, “in which someone is on trial.” [Kimbrough, 100]

Thus, as I noted in my first essay, sitting in a theater and listening to one character vomit for his or her neurotic problems or the history of her neurotic condition is not particularly favorable, nor is a fatty layer of maudlin emotion buttered on top. People today are much more cynical and while compassion exists, consistently overplaying emotion does not. So, finding new ways to make people feel the emotion or feel the emotional confusion or experience the suddenness of the event and attempt to synthesize the experience in the context of the play is, to my mind, a much better solution than mere presentation. So, Vogel’s techniques in How I Learned to Drive: the disruptions (of time, theme, memory); the multiplicity of voices; the Brechtian techniques and stage techniques; changes of generic modes; and even the assertion that the play itself is a polyphonic form; serves to create a more engaging form and a more diverse method by which meaning is constructed and life is understood.

References:
Stevenson, Sarah Lansdale. “Yielding to Multiplicity: The Kaleidoscopic Subject of Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive (1997). Women Making Art: Women in the Visual, Literary, and Performing Arts since 1960. Eruptions: New Thinking Across the Disciplines (Eruptions: New Thinking Across the Disciplines): 7. 2001.
Kimbrough, Andrew. “Formal Subversion in How I Learned to Drive: A Structure of Meaning.” Text & Presentation: The Comparative Drama Conference Series Supplement 4 (2007), pp. 93-108.
Vogel, Paula. “How I Learned to Drive” The Mammary Plays. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1998.
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