Death of a Driver
- Oct 12, 2020
- 2 min read
★★☆☆☆
My brother is the marketing director of the Unicorn Theatre. For the past several seasons, their creative has been handled by a local agency who, in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis, said they were barely hanging on and would have to pass on the upcoming season. My brother asked me if I was interested, and I said I was—this is a dream assignment that’s been on my wishlist for years. Of course, as part of the process, I have to read the plays, and so I have been. I love going to the theatre but I’ve never read a lot of plays (not unusual, I’m sure), so this has been a relatively novel experience for me. In any case, at the conclusion of reading each play, I’ve dashed off initial impressions via text to my brother. For these plays, unlike my more measured, more thoughtful book reviews, I’ll be using those slapdash messages.
Finished Death of a Driver this morning. Didn’t really grab me. Not bad but something was missing for me that kept it from being as compelling as I know it wants to be. I guess maybe I didn’t get enough from these characters to really care about them. Despite the years of connection, the friendship seemed shallow and superficial—as if “We are together” said repeatedly would somehow make it so but never actually did.
And either because it didn’t grab me, or because of my depleted state (I am truly running on fumes right now), I’m struggling to pinpoint what the protest is. Naive white savior versus overly accommodating African servant? NGOs versus corrupt African governments? Drinking to dull the pain? How European colonization created current tribal conflicts and violence? Necessary evils? Spare tires?
I suppose the tension is in the approach the two characters have towards corrupt government—one wants to bypass it entirely, the other wants to fight to overthrow it. The former isn’t entirely possible, the latter would likely only reveal the other side of the same coin. Lots of questions, no answers.
To which my brother replied, “The writer believes at it’s core Death of a Driver is about what happens when personal and political obligations collide. I also think this play is about the limits of understanding another person … even a close friend. Sometimes we never really get to see the full picture.”
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