Author: Paula Vogel
Artist: Kersti Varrak
Translator: Anu Lamp
Cast: Piret Kalda, Allan Noormets, Epp Eespäev, Ursula Ratasepp, Andero Ermel
"How I Learned to Drive" is a straightforward story about how a girl becomes a grownup through difficult life situations. The play brings to us recollections of a 40-year-old woman who looks back on her life since the age of eleven.
The title is ambiguous in several ways. Especially in America, where the play was written, getting a driving license symbolises becoming an adult. The heroine of the play learns driving from her aunt's husband who falls in love with the prematurely mature girl.
The attentions of this charming man, who feels, however, loneliness in his soul, has an effect on the girl's ego. But at the same time his advances make her feel uncomfortable. A relationship between a grownup man and an underage girl is a painful and delicate issue which the author has treated with understanding, but also with severity: it is clear that the situation could not be the way to happiness for either of them. Yet Vogel certainly does not put her main character in the role of a victim, but portrays her as a young woman who knows how to stand up for herself.