Educating Rita - Review

Reviewed by Marie Su
As I walked into the Reginald Theatre at the Seymour Centre, I took in the stage and set and I thought to myself; “That looks just right.” My companion commented that the view out of the office window on the set looked terrific and that was how the play made its first visual impact on the audience in Paul Holmes’ production of Willy Russells’s 1980’s play Educating Rita. I was familiar with the play as a HSC text so, I was not surprised to be seated in the cosy theatre with a number of senior school students, who were a responsive and thoughtful audience. Here we have it, a play that looks right and feels right to an audience, many of whom were aware of Rita’s burning need to get an education through the Open University system in England.

Rita, played by Sarah Robinson, changes her working class hairdresser life through her need to ‘sing a new song’ so to speak; to have a different life to the expectations of her mother and conventional plans of her husband. To make these changes she studies English literature and steps out into a new world of opportunity and personal choice. Rita engages Frank as her tutor and mentor in this task. Frank, played by Paul Holmes, also evolves personally in the play to challenge his commitment to his career as an academic, assess his drinking habits, face his personal failures as a romantic partner, as well as his limitations as a minor English poet.

These two challenging roles in the 110min (plus interval), production were praiseworthy indeed. Ms Robinson was consistent in her English working-class accent while engaging us in her perfectly-timed, witty repartee as she quizzed and probed her intellectual guide and mentor, Frank. Ms Robinson was fresh, enthusiastic, exuded personal warmth and was quick on the costume change, personally perceptive and ultimately wise in her rendition of Rita.

Paul Holmes portrayed a cranky, sometimes off-hand, middle-aged man disappointed in himself and the rewards life had brought him. He played also, a man who cared about the personal and intellectual growth of his student, Rita. He was a man capable of his own form of redemption. Mr Holmes’ attention to detail in Frank’s covertly imbibing alcohol in mugs poured from a coffee plunger gave the audience a value insight into the self-destructive addiction of Frank. The older audience members were also able to remember what it was like in the 1980’s where people smoked freely in confined spaces as both Mr Holmes and Ms Robinson smoked many a cigarette in their production.

The clothes, manners and values of the 1980’s were conveyed faithfully with an engaging, refreshing, hopefulness that reminds us all that with good will and hard work we can reach out for a more satisfying life. However, it does take acceptance of calculated risk and personal responsibility to be achieved.