The Mammary Plays
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The 1950s pop music accompanying Li'l Bit's excursion down memory lane cannot drown out the ghosts of her past. Sweet recollections of driving with her beloved uncle intermingle with lessons about the darker sides of life. Balmy evenings are fraught with danger; seductions happen anywhere. Li'l Bit navigates a narrow path between the demands of family and her own sense of right and wrong.
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This was disappointing considering it is listed on the Best American plays list and it's Pulitzer prize win in 1998. It pretty much has nothing to say over the traumas of sexual abuse of a young girl by her uncle and fails to show the emotional turmoil that Lil Bit would surely go through. There is also a notable lack of character development in which Lil Bit never seems to learn from her mistakes or any sort of character arc for anyone and thus I felt continuously disconnected from the play.
Oh and use of the choruses felt redundant adding very little to a plodding text
On the surface the story seems like a romance between a girl and a guy. But when it's discovered that it is a story of a 13 yr old and her 40+ year old uncle who keeps seeking her out on her own, the story takes on a very disturbing turn for me. Overall, the story is written with humor and sensitivity - so much so that it almost makes it seem ok for the uncle and niece to do what they did (yikes!).
The metaphor of learning to drive as a way to navigate through the twists and turns that life has to offer was done very well. I would have liked to have read more about how her relationship with Peck affected Lil Bit as she grew up.
