Love Professed
(published 2/04/05)
Educating Rita. At Theater 150, Ojai, through March 6.
Reviewed by Molly Freedenberg
It’s impossible not to love Laurie Prange as the high-spirited, spunky, upwardly mobile co-star in the Theater 150 production of Educating Rita, the two-person Willy Russell play made famous by the 1983 movie starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters.
The Ojai-based Prange is fantastic as Rita, a Cockney hairdresser who enrolls at the British equivalent of night school to learn “about everything,” and winds up giving her jaded, alcoholic literature professor, Frank, a new lease on life. The slight, talented, and experienced Prange wears the part of the energetic, funny, and streetwise Rita as easily as the natural blonde wears her red-haired “Rita” wig. Prange owns the first act of the play, delivering her lines with energy and endearing earnestness.
But the second act belongs to Scott Campbell, the 26-year acting veteran who plays the disillusioned professor. In the first act, Campbell is curmudgeonly and quietly funny; it is later, once Rita becomes insufferably “educated” and Frank spirals further into alcohol abuse, that Campbell finally shines in the spotlight. Campbell, who has appeared on film (White Oleander) and in TV shows (NYPD Blue), does a remarkable job conveying Frank’s conflicting feelings about Rita: fatherly care combined with sexual desire; sadness and anger over the loss of her adoration and dependence; and genuine interest in her well-being despite his distaste for her new persona.
Together, Campbell and Prange are electric. Under the guidance of first-time director Joel Jones, the actors do not overplay the drama in their relationship; they tread lightly through the underlying sexual tension and Rita’s growing disdain for Frank’s alcoholism.
In addition to the top-notch performances, other production details help make the magic happen onstage. The university office where the entire play takes place has walls in the shape of a giant book, papered with the faded pages of a Henry James novel and complete with underlined passages and scribbled notes. There’s Rita’s costuming, which changes from Jersey-girl sexy to conservative-bohemian, signaling a character transformation. And there’s a delightful musical surprise at the end of the performance that gave me the chills.