[NEohioPAL] Review of "Educating Rita" at Rabbit Run

[Bob Abelman]

'Educating Rita' offers master class in acting, directing 

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald 8/21/09

 

"I want to know everything." 

 

So begins Rita's journey through the foreign and intimidating world of higher education, with a pompous, alcoholic and creatively bankrupt literature professor as her guide and an ignorant, lower-class husband and go-nowhere life as her inspiration. 

 

In Willy Russell's Educating Rita, a carefully constructed, cleverly worded two-character tale, a young British hairdresser desperately seeks to alter her existence by improving her mind.  Her reluctant tutor, Frank, is desperately in need of rescue from his own self-loathing and self-destruction.  This drama with a generous sprinkling of comedy is currently on stage at Rabbit Run Theater in Madison Township.

 

Rita and Frank's on-campus encounters occur in a series of short vignettes, each taking place in a magnificently detailed Oxfordian office designed by Ray Beach and dressed by Julie Harter.

 

At first, both characters' psychological baggage and emotional scarring appears to be as thick and un-navigable as the piles of books that litter the bookcases and furniture.  However, each vignette reveals the next stage in Rita's intellectual evolution.  We see her shed her skin, expand her boundaries, and take new form.  We witness Tom's efforts at metamorphosis as well, which are more painful, less progressive and not successful.

 

Under Ann Hedger's perceptive direction, this production is a very sensitive rendering of this superb play.  Hedger is well aware of the power and rhythm of its language and, with a fine selection of classical music to fill the voids between vignettes, pieces together a fluid, inviting, and well-paced presentation.  

 

Tom Milligan's Frank is significantly less boisterous and cantankerous than has been portrayed in other arenas.  Milligan gives us a well-worn Frank, whose sexual overtures come across as harmless acts of desperation, as if reflexive muscle memory rather than actual intent is at work.

 

Although Frank's dynamic with Rita is more even-keeled than the playwright might have intended, this portrayal lends itself to greater sympathy for a man who has lost his muse.  It also allows for a more bittersweet and, thus, powerful recognition that, in creating a new and improved Rita, Frank is responsible for the loss of what made her unique.

 

Nancy Shimonek Brooks is a marvelous Rita.  She makes her character's insatiable curiosity about poetry and literature tangible, and captures everything that is endearing and invigorating about a suppressed woman reaching for and obtaining her true potential.  Watching Brooks express Rita's realization that "I don't want to be myself" is a master class in performance.   

 

This is fine theater very well presented.  This show closes out the summer stock season at Rabbit Run the way it began-on a high note. 

 

Educating Rita continues through August 29 at Rabbit Run Theater, 5648 W. Chapel Rd., Madison Township.  For tickets, which range from $15 to $17, call 440-428-7092 or visit www.rabbitrunonline.tix.com.
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