Lovely Rita earns an A despite by-the-book story

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This article was published 20/03/2010 (6049 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Higher learning does not earn top marks in Willy Russell’s late-’70s intellectual comedy Educating Rita.

The teacher is a self-hating English university professor named Frank who drunkenly falls off the rostrum in class. He initially resists acting as a night tutor to an unschooled hairdresser, but after agreeing, discovers to his dismay that he has indoctrinated her in the ways of literary snobbism. His academic performance earns him exile to Australia.

Fortunately, this Pygmalion update belongs to Mairi Babb and her Rita. The former Winnipeg actress enchants as the brash motormouth with a zest for life and a yearning for an educational makeover. In the uplifting Manitoba Theatre Centre revival, which opened Thursday night, Babb captures all of Rita’s quirky charms, which enchant Frank and make all of us in the audience fall for his perky protegé a little. As Rita would say, Babb is "dead good."

Rita literally barges into Frank’s stagnant life demanding an education. He doesn’t think he has anything to teach her but she is adamant about escaping her grinding lot by becoming an educated woman. She is naturally loaded with smarts, curiosity and a refreshing talent for seeing things for what they are.

Babb’s face is very familiar (My Fair Lady, Pride and Prejudice) to MTC patrons, though it almost disappears under big hair and over-rouged cheeks. With her creditable Scouse accent, Babb is a complete charmer, effortlessly projecting Rita’s humour and hunger. It’s hard not to pull for an underdog trying to better herself and escape an overbearing husband.

Educating Rita is not a particularly great script. The one-set — Brian Perchaluk’s handsome, book-lined literary lair — two-actor Cinderella story is basically static, with Rita talking and Frank listening. It’s set in 1979 and director Steven Schipper resolutely leaves it there, rightly resisting an update it to a time when sisters started doing it for themselves.

Russell (Shirley Valentine) presents Rita’s evolution from frustrating ignorance to glorious empowerment in 17 scenes, most of which begin with her bursting into Frank’s office. All those blackouts should kill the pace but Schipper fills the void with projections on three overhead screens of the day’s record albums, movie posters, pop stars, TV shows, heroes and examples of pop-culture kitsch. The Golden Oldies soundtrack, which includes Cheap Trick, Dire Straits and Billy Joel, also is a handy boomer-friendly diversion

Andrew Gillies plays Frank as a less charming Henry Higgins. His middle-aged mentor is a burned-out alcoholic who’s given up on his poetry as well as on inspiring his charges. Gillies gives a quiet, nuanced performance, effectively communicating the teacher’s sadness at preparing students to no longer need their instructors. But his Frank provides no romantic option for Rita — an undercurrent that should be present in their interaction.

Despite two hours of tutorials in which the student and the teacher reverse roles for a time, Educating Rita ultimately reminds its audience that intelligence need not have anything to do with formal education.

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca