BWW Reviews: TAP's Charming EDUCATING RITA Connects to Comedy and Literature

What is the value of an education? Does consumerism closet society's need to connect with art and literature, a "something more" to be experienced in the world than merely making a living? Stage Door Theatre Company at Third Avenue Playhouse revisits these questions in Educating Rita, a 1983 play written by Willy Russell. Many theatergoers may remember the 1983 award-winning film starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters, although the original Russell play has recently been revived in Chichester, England this spring.

This summer in Sturgeon Bay acclaimed Milwaukee actor Drew Brhel and a former Milwaukee Repertory Theater Intern, Katherine Duffy, reprise the classic roles. Duffy returns to TAP as the first actor-in-residence, and will be featured in several other performances this season under the direction of Co-Artistic Directors Robert Boles and James Valcq. With Brhel and Duffy directed adroitly in this produciton by Boles, Educating Rita remains relevant to a culture still mesmerized by acquiring "new dresses, or new tellly's" as Rita might say in her Liverpool accent, or perhaps in contemporary American vernacular she means new technology, iphones and ipads.

In the play, a 20-something blue collar and brilliantly honest hairdresser Rita, aspires to change her life with a college education because 'school wasn't cool' when she was growing up. She desires more choices in her life than marriage, buying new dresses, and having a baby, because as she puts her perspective, ' There's no meaning left to believe in except violence and vandalism. And we keep buying dresses to keep the disease covered."

Her teacher at an open university, a middle-aged professor Frank, tries to hide his alcoholism, "because one is never bored when drinking," and a stalled career writing as a poet, while he tutors Rita in literature so she can pass her college exams. While the play passes over one year entirely seen in Frank's college office, the pair's clever repartee and chemistry ricochet off Frank's bookshelves where he hides his liquor bottles behind Dickens and Hardy first editions.

Brhel imparts Frank with likeable warmth despite his cynicism for academia, his personal poetry and the other students he teaches while connecting to the disillusioned Rita, a refreshing, straightforward and charming character inhabited by Katherine Duffy who pulls no punches. While her character evolves into a more erudite young woman, Boles respectfully keeps Rita's costumes and language relatively understated druring the transformation ackowledging Rita's genuine interest in in her education instead of portraying her as young girl only interested in moving up the social class chain. Duffy centers Rita in authenticity and sincerity throughout Rita's journey while growing an affectionate relationship with Frank.

A funny theme in the production plays to E.M. Forster's novel, "Howards End," which at the beginning of the semester Rita understands absolutely nothing about. She even admits to Frank disliking this book. Frank replies by telling her she needs to apply an objective instead of subjective opinion to her first university essay, including understanding what Forster meant when he says, "only connect." The moment eventually translates into an "ah-ha" moment for Rita, and for Frank as he breaks through to Rita on what an education requires, and ultimately the audience, when they connect to what Frank and Rita experience. Whether this migth be a Forster novel or a live performance of Shakespeare, as Rita finally attends her first theater under Frank's tutelage, these moments become when: "art and literature feed the mind."

Feeding the mind plays into several premises that still exist in Russell's more than 30 year old play--perhaps more so in the contemoprary world, whether England or America---which is, how people can be driven by consumerism, thinking a life choice might mean how many varieties of beer appear on a pub's menu, and that significant people will leave someone when one of them decides to change the game and improve themselves or his/her life. A situation similar to what Rita experiences when her husband throws her out of the house when she refuses to have a baby, "because a time for an eduacation is not 26 or when you're married." Or when her old friends find her rather above their familliar pub nights singing after her first semester. Rita experiences these missed conncections when she no longer belongs, either with her old mates or the educated, upper crust society she eventually hopes to embrace. Although Rita discovers neither class culture has the answers to the meaning in life she seeks.

TAP's delightful producition will set an audience to thinking while Russell's British humor shines through these two very different characters' lives and connects with theatergoers. Perhaps that is why Educating Rita pokes at the funny bone and then pricks at often fundamental choices people make in their lives. Individuals still need to connect to each other on a genuine, personal level as Frank and Rita do, and see the meaning in connecting to art and literature, which feeds the mind and soul. And instincitivley then connect to their inner person with a joy similar to Rita's, waiting to be uncovered at any age, because as Rita finally learns there's always time to become the person you were meant to be when you explore your choices.

Stage Door Theatre Company presents Educating Rita at Third Avenue Playhouse through July 26. For informaiton or tickets, please call 920.743.1780 or www.thirdavenueplayhouse.org

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