How I Learned to Drive A Car

At short notice last Wednesday, Deb and I, and Deb's friend Claire, went to see a play put on by Monash Uni called "How I Learned To Drive A Car", starring Mr.Tsaoussi's son Ian. The topic of the play was pretty full-on: it was about paedophilia, and a young girl looking back on how her uncle's behaviour in her childhood shaped her into the person she is today. It was a very black sort of play, but strangely enough it was also quite humourous in parts - although sometimes in a way that really made you feel uncomfortable about whether you should be enjoying it or not.

The really good thing about the play, and the reason why I took Deb to see it, was because it put into practice a lot of the dramatic techniques we had been discussing in VCE Drama, after the VCE performances last week. It was a non-naturalistic style play, with just hints of sets and props and costumes to suggest different settings and characters. There was a distorted time sequence, with the story jumping backwards and forwards in time; and also some of the actors - including Ian - played several characters, just by changing their voice or mannerisms. All six of the actors were onstage at all times - when they weren't actually playing a character they stood at the back of the stage and acted as a voiceover, or helped create a soundscape.

It was really interesting to watch, and we really enjoyed it.
Monash have several other plays coming up, and they're usually pretty cheap - around $10-15 so I'll keep you up to date when they're coming up.

We should be back by about 6pm, although I'm not certain of that as I've never seen the play and don't know how long it runs, and also assume there will be a stop for dinner on the way home. People who are being dropped home personally need to factor that in too, as it takes a while to get around to people's houses.