Tag: Tom Whitaker

The Fading Glow – ‘These Shining Lives’ deals with worker safety

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FROM TOP : Madelyn Robinson, left, and Julian Remulla as Catherine & Tom Donohue David Bazemore Photo
FROM TOP :
Madelyn Robinson, left, and Julian Remulla as Catherine & Tom Donohue
David Bazemore Photo

It’s deeply cynical, but the title of Melanie Marnich’s play “These Shining Lives” alludes not just to a small-knit group of factory workers, but also to the radium with which they work. So when one woman arrives home and her husband says she’s radiant and glowing, it’s the literal truth. What these women do becomes the subject of this tough drama, opening tonight at the Performing Arts Theater.

Director Tom Whitaker’s last play was the broad comedy of Moliere’s “Tartuffe.” This time around, he’s going for drama, with a play that attracted him with its strong roles for young female actors.

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Take the Wheel – A new UCSB production travels the dark road

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Li'l Bit (Alexia Dox) and Uncle Peck (Eduardo Fernandez-Baumann) have a tabboo secret in the UCSB Theater season opener ñHow I Learned to Drive.Ó David Bazemore Photo

Li’l Bit (Alexia Dox) and Uncle Peck (Eduardo Fernandez-Baumann) have a tabboo secret in the UCSB Theater season opener ñHow I Learned to Drive.Ó
David Bazemore Photo

Who’s in the driver seat of your life? That’s the metaphor at the center of Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning play opening at UCSB’s Performing Arts Theatre next Friday.

If you are Li’l Bit (Alexia Dox), the young female protagonist, you’ve been giving the steering wheel over to Uncle Peck (Eduardo Fernandez-Baumann), your aunt’s husband, who for several years was in a secret sexual relationship with you. Told from the older Li’l Bit’s perspective, with frequent flashbacks to her time with Uncle Peck, “How I Learned to Drive” is, in playwright Vogel’s phrase, “Lolita from the girl’s point of view.” It is also about how we learn from those who abuse us and how we can be hurt by the people who want to help us.

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