Degrees for Dishwashers: an Educating Rita review
Top-calibre performances, brilliant set and costume design, and a script that has stood the test of thirty years come together to make Educating Rita a compelling piece of local theatre, and the perfect launch to what promises to be an interesting and entertaining series.
John Koensgen and Sarah McVie are Frank and Rita (photo: Arts Court)
Set in contemporary England (circa 1980, although this is never explicitly stated), the action of Educating Rita takes place in the office of Frank (John Koensgen), a professor of English literature. The academic atmosphere is immediately established by the quaint, tweedy set. Susan White, AKA Rita (Sarah McVie), a 26-year-old hairdresser from Liverpool, has signed up for an Open University course and been assigned Frank as a tutor. Frank’s initial reluctance to take her on as a student is overcome by Rita’s dogged insistence and apparent thirst for knowledge. This thirst for knowledge turns out to be more than curiosity; it is Rita’s quest for a better life and an escape from her social class that drives her. The play follows Rita’s development under—and beyond—Frank’s tutelage, in a humorous but poignant look at social conditions.
Although Educating Rita is a comedy, director Kate Hurman has done her level best to emphasize the central theme of Rita’s development as a character. McVie captures the subtleties of Rita’s transformation with considerable skill and fine attention to her art, aided to a great degree by the remarkable costume designs of Judith deBoer (Shadows). By contrast, Koensgen’s Frank is almost a tragic character, falling slowly victim to his own alcoholic bitterness and the self-deprecating vanity with which all poets seem to be plagued.
Willy Russell’s script, although loaded with the English working-class idiom of its day, somehow remains current and universal. Many of the cultural references in the play are typically English, yet not so obscure that the average North American audience member would be left confused. As might be expected, much of the dialogue is concerned with literature—again, the references are handled in such a way that even an audience wholly unfamiliar with the material discussed can follow along with no trouble.
It is the engaging chemistry between Koensgen and McVie that is the overarching strong point of this production. Koensgen’s depiction of Frank is dead accurate—as believable as Michael Caine in the same role. McVie is endearing, engaging, and completely at home as Rita. Early on, her Liverpool accent leaves a little to be desired, but a few lines in, her delivery is so fascinating, so clearly Rita, that this no longer matters.
For a two-act play with a brief intermission, scene changes are rather frequent. Through an astute lighting design and cleverly directed scene openings, the effect of the frequent breaks in action is somewhat mitigated. At times, the transitions have a slightly inappropriate cinematic or television feel to them; the accompanying music detracts, being noticeably too loud and seemingly anachronistic. These minor technical details do not take away from the overall character of the production, however.
This play, if run during the school year, would make a perfect outing for a high-school English class. Besides being thoroughly enjoyable as comic entertainment, it deals realistically with both the positive and negative aspects of higher education and showcases the struggle for personal independence, while touching upon the philosophy of literature in an accessible way.
After the performance, I came across Hurman signing a paperback copy of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady for someone who evidently had a cheeky sense of humour. Hurman deserves to be congratulated for holding true to her promise to draw something more out of the script than just another tale of a professor coaxing a flower out of a pot of dirt. She rounds out Rita’s character to the fullest extent; Frank is more Hank Moody than Henry Higgins. In a way, Educating Rita is the perfect modern counterpoint to Pygmalion, and it is satisfying to see it produced with care on a local stage.
Educating Rita runs from July 14 until August 1, 2010 in the Arts Court Theatre at 2 Daly Avenue. Evening performances begin at 8pm, Sunday matinées at 2pm. No performances on Mondays or Tuesdays. Tickets are available for $25 ($20 for students and seniors) and include a booklet of 2-for-1 Dinner and Show Passes valid at seven different restaurants in the downtown core. In addition, there will be a Pay-What-You-Can matinée Saturday, July 17 at 2pm. For more information, visit www.artscourt.ca or call the Arts Court Box Office at (613) 564-7240.
Tags: Arts Court, Educating Rita, John Koensgen, Kate Hurman, Sarah McVie, Summer Fling
