THEATER REVIEW ‘EDUCATING RITA’ : New Again : The familiar story features good comic performances in Tour de Force Repertory’s production.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one: A dejected middle-aged man encounters a free-spirited young woman and attains a whole new outlook on life.

Wherever else you’ve seen it, that’s also the story line of “Educating Rita,” playwright Willy Brown’s 1980 updating of “Pygmalion” that became a 1983 film starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters. The story’s familiar, but the way it’s told is reason enough to recommend the current production by the Tour de Force Repertory Company, playing through Feb. 1 in Simi Valley and moving next month to Thousand Oaks.

Two casts alternate throughout the run, both directed by R. Harrison Craig. While this weekend’s performances will star Judy Weaver and Bill Hillstrom, the two-character show opened with Thyra Gustafson and Ken Alexander.

Frank is a stiff academic type in a Liverpool college who’s been assigned an open university class--sort of like a U.S. university extension, where virtually anybody who can afford the tuition will be admitted. Enter Rita, a 26-year-old hairdresser with a zest for life and a strong desire to improve her education.

While she has little or no knowledge of the classics, Rita is well-read in her own way, able to quote contemporary “trash” novels and--more impressively--Liverpool poet Roger McGough. Frank dismisses all that and he prefers to submerge himself and Rita in the likes of E.M. Forster.

What happens, to playwright Brown’s credit, is not all that you might anticipate. Gustafson is an irrepressible Rita, nattering away in her Northern accent as she spins around Frank’s office. The play belongs to Rita, though Brown has tried to create a three-dimensional Frank, and Alexander does his very best to bring that rumpled, cynical character to life. Both are believable.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“Educating Rita” runs Thursday through Saturday, through Feb. 1. The Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center is the old courthouse, 3190 Cochran St. (at Galena), Simi Valley. Performances are at 8 each night, and tickets are $10, or $8 for seniors on Thursday and Saturday nights. For reservations or further information, call 582-0232 or (818) 349-1948.