HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE Reviews

Post away.

CityLights3 said: "I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the best reviewed Broadway show of the entire season to date."

I won't say best-reviewed, but certainly one of the best this season. 

Theatermania is positive/rave:

Review: A Richly Deserved, Long-Belated Broadway Bow for Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/reviews/how-i-learned-to-drive-review_93666.html

Critics Pick from NYT (Maya Phillips):

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/theater/how-i-learned-to-drive-review.html

yay!

Two and a half stars from NY Post. Positive on Parker, less so on other aspects.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/19/how-i-learned-to-drive-review-mary-louise-parker-is-moving/

NYT Critic's Pick from Maya Phillips:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/theater/how-i-learned-to-drive-review.html

Helen Shaw in Vulture is positive, and well-written as always:

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-how-i-learned-to-drive-broadway.html

"I realize that doesn’t make it sound like a fun 100 minutes in the theater. And Brokaw’s production does show a few cracks: The glowing screens (designed by Rachel Hauck) are unhandsome; David Van Tieghem’s sound design does not always amplify the actors sufficiently. But the chance to see these performers doing such incandescent work should shoulder all such concerns aside. See it for Parker, see it for Morse. Drive is also — and I’m sorry this is such an uncool way to put it — the truth. We have been surrounded in recent months by variously hysterical and inaccurate claims from politicians and blowhards about what counts as child endangerment. Vogel, with all her postmodern tricks, is offering a straight-forward account of how these things happen. A girl is in peril, and although the people around her all sense it, they actively push her further into harm. “Sometimes to tell a secret, you first have to teach a lesson,” says Li’l Bit. That’s the lesson in the play, surely, one far more important than the ones the U.S. theater has so dutifully learned from Vogel’s writing style: Look at the thing that people tell you to keep hidden — and describe it as it really is."

Four stars and five stars from New York Stage Review:

 

How I Learned to Drive: Costly Lessons in Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Winner

https://nystagereview.com/2022/04/19/how-i-learned-to-drive-costly-lessons-in-paula-vogels-pulitzer-winner/

How I Learned to Drive: Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer-Prize-Winner Returns in Highest Gear

https://nystagereview.com/2022/04/19/how-i-learned-to-drive-paula-vogels-pulitzer-prize-winner-returns-in-highest-gear/

AMNY is positive/rave:

Review | Mary-Louise Parker scores in role she originated 25 years ago

https://www.amny.com/entertainment/theater/review-mary-louise-parker-scores-in-role-she-originated-25-years-ago/

These are love letters that win an actress a Tony. I think Mary-Louise has her third one in the bag with this performance. Morse is very clearly a frontrunner for Lead Actor, too, but I think Mary-Louise is knocking people out in very special way.

ElephantLoveMedley said: "These are love letters that win an actress a Tony. I think Mary-Louise has her third one in the bag with this performance. Morse is very clearly a frontrunner for Lead Actor, too, but I think Mary-Louise is knocking people out in very special way."

I must say that COVID-19 delaying the production might’ve been the best thing to have happened to Mary-Louise Parker because she only got to contend (and win) for The Sound Inside at the previous Tony Awards. Now, it looks like she’ll become the very first performer to have won Best Lead Actress in a Play two years in a row.

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Who the heck is getting nominated for Best Actor in a Play?I could see them nominating all 3 from LEHMAN, David Morse, and then either Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Daniel Craig, or Sam Rockwell? I don't know how you choose one of the Lehmen...maybe SRB? Or they don't nominate any?"

The nominees I'm currently predicting for that category are...

Simon Russell Beale
Adam Godley
Adrien Lester
David Morse
Ruben Santiago-Hudson

I think Ruben could sneak in given the high wire act he had to do playing multiple characters in Lackawanna Blues coupled with him managing to go on while recovering from a back injury. Plus, his overall visibility from this past season between that and directing Skeleton Crew could help.

Updated On: 4/20/22 at 06:28 AM

With these kind of reviews, MLP is winning her third Tony.  There's no getting around that.