Stage Review : ‘Hyur Edukashun’ Rises to the Level of TV’s Most Exhausted Stuff

With its satiric title and university setting, you might think that “Hyur Edukashun” is a barbed little number about scholarly troubles in the higher-education system. Maybe a sardonic look at lazy teaching programs that toss unprepared students into the real world, or something along those lines.

Uh-uh. “Hyur Edukashun,” written by former Cal State Fullerton instructor Lew Riley and being given its world premiere by the Ana Modjeska Players in Anaheim, isn’t interested in any of that. The play aspires only to the realm of the lightheaded, superficial TV sitcom.

No problem with that: A blast of escapist fun can be a good thing. But “Hyur Edukashun” is too little like the best and too much like the worst that television has to offer. Chocked full of halting one-liners and worn cliches, this comedy is about as poorly conceived as the most exhausted stuff you can see in your living room any night of the week.

The locale is the English department at Hargrove College, a school where blow-hard department heads, sniggering sexist professors, jive-talking black football stars and shy, repressed secretaries work and play. There really isn’t much of a plot--most of the action centers on meek gal Friday Judy (Debbie Korkunis) and stalwart teacher Jim (Christopher Wade) as they move by fits and starts toward romance.

Judy has a wiseacre best friend (Regina Woods Wimbish), and there’s a horny professor (Rodney Kerns) and a high-skirted cheerleader (Danielle Paquet), sort of a cross between Lolita and a rad Valley girl. Everybody gets to fight with the impossible Dr. Ivan Dudley (Bill Shope), a pompous boob who runs the whole shebang.

Sexual humor (the strictly censored, barely blushing kind) makes up much of the goings-on. There’s a lot of talk about guys being hunks and gals being foxes, and even the up-tight Dr. Dudley has a quasi-nasty liaison in his office (behind closed doors, of course). Judy gets to wear a micromini and a hooker’s frizzed wig for a while, after she decides she has to do something really drastic to get Jim’s attention.

Does any real educating go on at Hargrove College? If so, it must be between the leers and innuendoes.

“Hyur Edukashun’s” problems go beyond the script. The production lost one of its principal actresses a week into the run because of appendicitis, which prompted some cast changes. And, according to Riley, another player routinely shows up late or not at all, forcing one of the other actors to take on an extra role. This lack of continuity may explain much of the production’s jerky pacing and overall shakiness.

There are few convincing performances--Shope seems unsure of himself and his character; Korkunis is too flightily mannered, and Wade’s portrayal is wooden. As Dudley’s wife, Alice Mallett does deliver some refreshingly comic moments, but she’s really only a walk-on, unable to help this misguided exercise very much.

‘HYUR EDUKASHUN’ An Ana Modjeska Players premiere of Lew Riley’s comedy. Directed by Roger Banowetz. With Debbie Korkunis, Bill Shope, Regina Woods Wimbish, Rodney Kerns, Christopher Wade, Cynthia Bauer, Alice Mallett and Danielle Paquet. Set by Roger Banowetz. Ends today at the Anaheim Cultural Arts Center, 931 N. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim. Tickets: $6. (714) 772-3925 or (714) 991-4135.