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PV: I actually describe Drive as a comedy. Of course it’s not, but the first half very much functions as comedy... For me combining sadness and comedy heightens both. We don’t want to be taken by surprise, so we keep our guard up. Comedy defuses that vigilance so in the next moment we are unprepared for the explosion....The comedy dismantles any protective covering. Hitchcock uses comedy and terror the same way. So that’s why I think I do it. Arthur Holmberg: Drive dramatizes in a disturbing way how we receive great harm from the people who love us. Paula Vogel: I would reverse that. I would say that we receive great love from the people that harm us. AH: Why is it significant to reverse it? PV: We are now living in a culture of victimization, and great harm can be inflicted by well-intentioned therapists, social workers, and talk-show hosts who encourage people to dwell in their identity as victim. Without denying or forgetting the original pain, I wanted to write about the great gifts that can also be inside that box of abuse. My play dramatizes the gifts we receive from people who hurt us. AH: So what does Li’l Bit receive? PV: She received the gift of how to survive. AH: In Drive, Li’l Bit looks at her painful memories, processes the experiences, and then moves on. Why is it important to forgive the harm? PV: Many people stay rooted in anger against transgressions that occurred in childhood, and this rage will be directed to other people in their adult lives and toward themselves. Whether we call it forgiveness or understanding, there comes a moment when the past has to be processed, and we have to find some control. There are two forgivenesses in the play. One forgiveness for Peck, but the most crucial forgiveness would be Li’l Bit’s forgiving Li’l Bit. Li’l Bit as an adult looking at and understanding her complicity... AH:... her destructiveness. You once said that it was important to give the audience a catharsis. PV: Catharsis purges the pity and the terror and enables the audience to transcend them...This is a movement forward. For me, purgation means a forward movement. Interview
by Arthur Holmberg
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