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Educating Rita Lichfield Garrick ***** EVERY so often the world of theatre
throws up a little gem – and this one positively sparkles from the
moment jaded, disheveled academic, Dr Frank Bryant stumbles through the
door desperate for a drink. Willie Russell's two hander started life in 1980
and it is a tribute to both his writing, updated a little admittedly,
and the cast that you could easily believe you were watching a new play.
It is still as relevant now as it was a generation ago, fresh, vibrant
and very funny - with a fine thread of pathos running though it. We have Rita, played by Tupele Dorgu, once of
Coronation Street and most recently starring in Chicago, who
is a working class Liverpool hairdresser who managed, like so many, to
pass through school without much in the way of education sticking to
her. She is different though. She despairs at the
prospect of a life of pubs, small talk in the salon where she works,
karaoke and babies and wants more, so, at the age of 29 she decides it's
time to go back to school and enrols on an English literature course at
the Open University to find herself. Her real name is Susan, but she calls herself
Rita after Rita Mae Brown author of her favourite book, the lesbian
coming-of-age autobiographical novel, Rubyfruit Jungle. A book
she thinks is brilliant. Her tutor is Frank, a jaundiced university lecturer and once, many years ago, a minor poet, played by the Garrick Rep's producer, Walsall actor Tom Roberts. His study is a mixture of library and off-licence with bottles out of sight behind books on every shelf – his compromise with the University authorities on his drinking habits.
Frank is divorced, a drunk who is living in a
less then happy relationship with an ex-student and like Rita, despairs
at the life he is leading – the only difference is that his life in
academia is the same life that his new student Rita aspires to join. It is Frank's first tutorship with the OU, a job
he has taken on with no more noble an aspiration than to subsidise his
rather large booze bill; so Rita is a necessary inconvenience – as are
most of his students. Yet in Rita he starts to see an enthusiasm, a
vitality, a burning desire to learn which starts to reawaken his own
interest in literature. Rita's lack of literary knowledge is apparent
from the off when, for example, talking about poetry she is asked: “Do you know Yeats? “ The wine lodge? “ No, W.B. Yeats, the poet. The play follows their relationship over a year, marked by a changing calendar on the wall. As Rita learns, and talks, and talks and talks . . . Lord, can she talk . . . Frank stops drinking and rediscovers his love of literature and teaching – at least where Rita is concerned - and a growing affection for his willing pupil. Rita's late search for education comes at a price
though – her husband throws her out for refusing to give up the course
and have a baby – which forces her to make a new life but as she learns,
Rita slowly changes; the naïve, refreshingly honest, bright but
unpolished Scouse hairdresser who soaks up learning like a sponge,
starts to ape all the pretensions of academia that Frank hates. At first
it amuses him but then he starts to despair. The real Rita, the one he
had started to fall in love with -"if only you had come through that
door 20 years ago" - the Rita full of life and passion, has been lost to
the literature snobs; his drinking and cynicism return until finally he
is reported by his students for being drunk at a lecture. “Pissed? I was glorious. I fell off the
rostrum twice.” You can see his time, and probably hers, at the
university are limited. Frank finally gets around to reading Rubyfruit
Jungle and declares it to be quite brilliant but Rita declares the
book to be rubbish, seeing it as something childish and unworthy – or
perhaps, more honestly, something from a past she does not want to
acknowledge. She even wants to change her name so she is not associated
with Mae Brown any more. For the first time we see all the anger and
frustration as Frank finally turns on his student: "Found a culture, have you, Rita? Found a
better song to sing, have you? No--you have found a different song,
that's all. And on your lips it's shrill and hollow and tuneless." She storms out - Frank takes to the bottle. Rita passes her exam, with a good mark, but once again she is questioning her life, this time her new one, after her flatmate's attempted suicide. Life among the literary elite is just as empty as
the superficial, unfulfilling one from which she thought she had
escaped. She returns to thank Frank who his packing his books and
bottles away, having been banished to Australia for two years by the
university – an academic yellow card for his drinking. We have come full circle with both once more
looking for a new start.
Dorgu and Roberts are quite magnificent. Rita is
a huge part, a feat of memory, that requires not only a good Liverpool
accent, but great comic timing and endless costume changes – all at high
speed and sometimes on a blacked out stage and Dorgu never puts a
stiletto heeled foot wrong. Roberts' Frank is more laid back, cynical at
first then encouraging so his explosion at the end comes as rather a
shock to both the audience and Rita. His inebriated Frank in the second
act is a masterclass of playing a drunk with a legless Frank desperately
trying to appear sober and carry on as normal. Director Gareth Tudor Price, former artistic
director of Hull Truck Theatre, has kept up a cracking pace with even
the black-outs between scenes playing their part helping to indicate a
passage of time rather than just slowing things down. The Garrick Rep company have not skimped on the
set design by John Brooking either and it shows with as solid a
panelled wall, with its slightly grubby leaded windows, as you are
likely to see.
This is a first class production which also
deserves a London airing and in the intimate surroundings of the Garrick
Studio you are right there in the study with Frank and Rita. Quality
acting and quality writing all on your doorstep. A gem not to be
missed.To 22-06-13. Roger Clarke
***** IF ANY of you
have teenage children studying English or a similar related subject and
have been tasked with helping them at some point, you may just have
encountered the underlying frustration of Dr Frank Bryant, the
middle-aged university lecture in Willey Russell's Educating Rita. The modern day curriculum, more than ever, asks
for students to deliver only views to writing and poetry within the
confines of pre-determined educational responses; there is no place for
personal interpretation. The education of literature is a mechanical
process and far from the random, inspirational and emotional muse that
creates it. Frank knows this and after a weary lifetime rebels against
the system that employs him, to disseminate a subject he feels
passionately about, finding respite only in his alcoholism. Enter Rita, a bubbly 29 year old hairdresser from
a Liverpool working class background, who is now seeking educational
enlightenment and the scene is set to examine education, an individual's
exclusion from it, and the change that the Open University brought to
adult study, at a time when the notion of further education was deemed
to belong only to the privileged. Tupele Dorgu takes on the formidable task of Rita
with a break neck speed and passion for the part and clearly revels in
the passion Rita has for acquiring new knowledge. Her take on the role
is quite different as she engages with the opening world of learning and
literature in a frenzy of energy and wonder. Tom Roberts plays Frank Bryant and is a constant
measure and antidote to her youthfulness. Although impressed by her raw
enthusiasm he becomes frustrated by his underlying need to corral her
thinking into an academic and accepted form. There are some thunderous
exchanges between the two and the pairing both deliver excellent
performances within this award winning play. The play is directed by Gareth Tudor price and
features a very impressive flat wall set. The only issue I have with the
experience is according to where you sit, that in the intimate studio
space you will be presented with a very one dimensional view according
to where your seat is allocated. Both characters are often in the same
position and my view was disappointingly mostly of the back of Rita's
head for much of the performance. Simply using the space more
effectively would have further added to the enjoyment of this. So another first class production for this well
established company and it's just a pity they do not come around more
often. To 22-06-13
Meanwhile, question three on the exam paper . . . ***** FREQUENT bursts of applause during
opening night of Willy Russell's clever play indicated just how much the
audience were enjoying this production by the Lichfield Garrick Rep
Company. The film version starring Julie Walters and
Michael Caine was a hit, telling the heart-warming story of how working
class Liverpool hairdresser Rita decides she wants more out of life and
enrols for an Open University course on literary appreciation. It loses nothing of its impact in the intimate
atmosphere of the Garrick studio, where John Brooking's impressively
designed set, representing Professor Frank Bryant's oak-panelled study
on the first floor of a Victorian-built university, is simply ideal. Tupele Dorgu, of Coronation Street and Chicago
the musical fame, lights up the stage with wonderful performance as
Rita, bringing every ounce of razor-sharp humour to the role of the
29-year-old married woman desperate to find something more from life
than just trimming hair and avoiding her husband's demands to come off
the pill. It's remarkable how who quickly and frequently
she manages to change her clothes, from a range of mini skirts in the
opening scenes, to ankle length dresses as she matures in the second
act. And Walsall-born actor Tom Roberts, playing the
world weary middle-aged alcoholic, Professor Bryant, is the perfect
foil. Bearded Tom, a touch dishevelled, gets it just right as the
intellectual who at first finds the 'overtime' job of teaching the young
woman a chore - while pulling bottles of scotch from behind books - but
gets a lesson himself from the young woman bristling with enthusiasm and
fun. Directed by Gareth Tudor Price and produced
by Adrian Jackson and Roberts, the play runs to 22.06.13 Paul Marston
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