STAGE REVIEW : Stop-Gap’s ‘Rita’ Manages to Educate

The first time we see (and hear) Rita in Stop-Gap’s “Educating Rita,” she’s screeching like a broken siren. This is clearly a woman who wants to be heard, even if she’s not sure what she says is all worth hearing.

Later, after the spunky London hairdresser has tasted scholarship through a university tutorial program, Rita is more reflective, subdued. Playwright Willy Russell seems to tell us that big ideas can shrink big emotions, and Rita, although claiming a broader life, is less juicy. Ah, the price of intellectual development, that thorny pursuit of the introspective.

Her tutor, the burnt-out Frank (something of a dissolute Henry Higgins to her Eliza Doolittle) has been left pale by his ivory-tower residence. A failed poet but expert drinker, it’s all pretension and pusillanimity to him, until Rita shows up, careening around an office where he’s hidden bottles of booze behind volumes of the classics.

At the Curtis Theatre in Brea, where Santa Ana-based drama therapy troupe Stop-Gap has mounted “Educating Rita” as part of the Festival of Britain arts/retail promotion, director Don Laffoon keeps Russell’s simple ideas about personal expression and educational and social snobbery clear and straightforward.

This is not the type of production that can raise a play above itself, drawing attention away from “Educating Rita’s” flaws (Rita’s metamorphosis comes too easily and in too short a time, for one thing) but it succeeds as “message.”

In an earlier interview with The Times, Laffoon said he wanted disadvantaged women to take hope from Rita’s eagerness to improve, and on that level, this staging works.

Here, Rita is the brave loser who is transformed into the celebrated winner. The price she pays is dear--Rita resides in limbo, feeling out of place among her working-class husband and friends, as well as among Frank’s large-brained crowd--but she believes it’s worth it, even if Frank isn’t so sure.

There’s vitality in Kendahl Thompson’s performance as Rita. And loudness. While she was too clamorous and far-reaching in the early stages during Friday’s opening night, Thompson found better measurements for her portrayal as she went on. Her evolution draws us in.

As Frank, Christopher John Ward was consistently restrained, almost bland, which allowed Thompson to dominate our attention. Of course, that’s appropriate because it’s Rita’s play more than Frank’s. Through his characterization we do get a sense of Frank’s lost ways and self-loathing.

‘EDUCATING RITA’

A Stop-Gap production of Willy Russell’s play. Directed by Don Laffoon. With Kendahl Thompson and Christopher John Ward. Set and costumes by Victoria Bryan. Lighting by Patrick Brien. Plays Thursday through Saturday and Nov. 8 and 9 at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at the Curtis Theatre, 1 Civic Center Circle, Brea. Tickets: $12 and $15. (714) 990-7722.