![]() Rita isn't ready for a baby, she just wants to find herself. Her father and husband want her to have a baby and the husband even goes so far as to burn her books because he finds her birth control pills. However, Rita is having a hard time adjusting with her working class family. He initially doesn't want to teach Rita aka Susan, but he admires her spunky originality and takes her on as a student. Her tutor is the disillusioned and constantly drunk Frank. She enrolls at Open University to get an education in literature. Rita (Julie Walters) is a twenty-six year old, uneducated Liverpool hairdresser with a midlife crisis. The Rita of the opening scenes is more caricature than character – a directorial choice which grates a little – and clarity is sometimes lost in the quickfire exchanges which may have benefited from a pause or two.Michael Caine stars as literary professor Frank Bryant in the drama/comedy written by Willy Russell. Their relationship, and consequently the mood of the play, oscillates between easy banter, confused stand-offs and heart-wrenching honesty, before returning to humour again. There is a shift in accent, in appearance, in movement (increasingly subtle) in Rita’s character, just as Frank becomes more unhinged. In essence, the play works due to a number of key reversals and shifts: A central reversal in status takes place as Frank realises that, increasingly, he needs Rita more than she needs him. There is little movement without words and all scene changes and props are dealt with without stage-hands. The exceptionally wordy and complex script is delivered between them alone. The two actors accomplish a lot in a little over two hours. It’s myself I’m not too fond of.” Much of the evening’s humour derives from this, and yet by the end, there is an explicit and implicit acknowledgement that betterment is possible, that education matters and that we’d do well to recognise that we can learn from anyone. ![]() When asked why his partner left him, Frank replies: “I like her enormously. Some lines are laugh-out-loud funny, but at its best, the script delivers wry observations we recognise as universal. ![]() Witty and tight, it sends up the notion of self-improvement and social mobility, self-satisfied arrogance, and ironically even the study of literature itself. Grimacing and gesturing, she can’t help but irritate the audience a little, and surely, that is the point: We judge her, just like Frank judges her.ĭespite two very capable performances, Willy Russell’s script is the real star of the show. By contrast, Jessica Johnson’s ‘Rita’ (real name Susan, but she is re-inventing herself as someone much more glamorous) is loud, brash, awkward and a little fake. Stephen Tompkinson is not one of the country’s most loved stage actors for nothing – he inhabits the space as the dishevelled academic Frank, whose drinking habit forces him to commit to Open University tuition after hours. All is not well: a subtle stroke of stage design genius. Nothing out of the ordinary for an academic context, but the loving attention to detail is touching: every picture above the fireplace is hanging a little squint. A dimly-lit, naturalistic set of a study with an imposing desk and floor-to-ceiling books sets the scene. Cheery 80s music greets the crowd filing into Eden Court’s Empire Theatre for Educating Rita.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |