Troupe Leader Sees Lesson of Hope in ‘Educating Rita’ : Theater: Don Laffoon of the Stop-Gap drama-therapy group sees the comedy as showing how to go from victim to survivor.

Rita, the nearly illiterate but spirited London hairdresser of Willy Russell’s “Educating Rita,” is a woman hemmed in by circumstance. Uneducated, unexplored and with a husband who prefers a wife at home and pregnant, she lives a life of noisy desperation.

In short, Rita’s the type of woman that Don Laffoon and Stop-Gap, the Santa Ana-based drama therapy troupe he runs, can relate to.

By choosing “Educating Rita” as Stop-Gap’s latest production (opening a two-week run today at the Curtis Theatre in Brea as part of the Festival of Britain arts-retail promotion), Laffoon hopes to send a message to troubled or disadvantaged women that life is not as bleak as they may think. The group’s work with Orange County clinics for battered women was inspirational in deciding to mount the play, he added.

Rita is a valuable symbol because she finds a chance for fulfillment by aggressively pursuing higher learning, which Laffoon believes is as good a start as any.

“To me it’s all about women making choices,” he said. “We can choose between sitting down and feeling sorry for ourselves or moving from victim to survivor. I’m not saying it’s easy, but you have to take that first step.”

In “Educating Rita”--which had its London premiere in 1980 and became a film starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters in 1983--Rita eagerly enrolls in a tutorial program where her mentor and tormentor is the sodden Frank, a professor and burnout case if ever there was one. It’s something of a take on the “Pygmalion” tale, played for both humor and pathos.

Rita finds self-awareness and opportunity, while Frank is rejuvenated by her earthiness and determination. There’s sexual tension and a hint of romance, but it’s all ambiguous and doesn’t get in the way of Russell’s main theme of personal expression and social and educational snobbery.

“Educating Rita” maintains an amusing tone, a fact Laffoon finds refreshing. Stop-Gap (and Laffoon, who directs the productions) is associated with primarily serious (some might even say didactic) “message” plays, but Laffoon believes “Educating Rita” can’t be placed in that category.

“Happily, it’s a comedy. You know, we’re famous for doing plays on topics like incest, and I can hear people saying something like ‘Oh no, Laffoon is doing something depressing again.’ Well, this isn’t anything like that.”

Still, Laffoon has been careful not to gloss over the play’s implications. To underscore the challenges Rita faces, he has cast a black actress (Kendahl Thompson of Los Angeles) in a role customarily played by a white. Her co-star, Christopher Ward of Los Angeles, is white.

“I didn’t think it changed the play, but added a welcome, more interesting texture,” Laffoon explained. “‘Educating Rita” was first done in the early ‘80s, but now it’s the ‘90s, a time when all women are emerging, but especially minority women. To me, it was a decision that made perfect sense.”

Willy Russell’s “Educating Rita” will be performed Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Nov. 1 through 3 and 8 and 9 at 8 p.m., with 2:30 p.m. matinees Sunday and Nov. 4 at the Curtis Theatre, 1 Civic Center Circle, Brea. Tickets: $12 and $15. Information: (714) 990-7722.