This mimics the way that memory actually works, with voices popping up unexpectedly without necessarily occurring in a linear, progressive order. In one scene, for example, the choruses allow Li’l Bit to relate several different high school experiences in quick succession, seamlessly shifting from the gym changing rooms to the school dance, linked together by the choruses’ role in playing different classmates-all of whom comment on her breasts. They also allow Vogel to make quick transgressions between time and space, and to give the audience content that isn’t limited by taking place within the confines of a typical conversation. These voices become a fragmentary background presence, almost like static on the radio. In her play, the three choruses-dubbed Male, Female, and Teenage respectively-allows for a multitude of voices. Vogel modifies the usual role of the chorus.

Choruses were first used in ancient Greek theater, their main function being to comment on the action, to provide background information, and, by singing, to give musical expression to the play’s emotional content. Li’l Bit’s mother, grandmother, and grandfather), Vogel specifies that all of the other characters are to be played by three “Greek choruses.” This is a deliberate strategy intended to better represent Li’l Bit’s trauma as it is actually felt. Instead of having all of the other characters appear on stage individually (e.g. Rather than have a conventional actor-character relationship, in which each actor plays a single role, Vogel uses only two principal characters: Li’l Bit and Peck. In fact, the play as a whole can be taken as an argument against the repression of traumatic memories by placing her experiences out in the open, Li’l Bit aims to understand them better and, ultimately, to go beyond them. Told retrospectively from the viewpoint of Li’l Bit, who was sexually exploited in her adolescence by Uncle Peck, the play presents the way trauma inhabits the memory of its principal character. How I Learned to Drive explores the effects of trauma on memory and, indeed, of memory on trauma.

The play how i learned to drive