Jennifer Geens
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 28/04) - There's a scene in Kitsch In Sync's production of Educating Rita where Frank, played by Ken Woodley, rants about theatre and how he hates it -- especially the amateurs.

But this is an amateur production that doesn't deserve to be on Frank's hitlist.

Educating Rita is a comedy, sort of an updated Pygmalion that explores class struggle and personal "improvement," only with a more critical eye.

Finding a play that will fit the intimate (a kind word for cramped) stage of Lucille's is a challenge, but Educating Rita is set entirely in a professor's office. The book-cluttered set that fills a corner of the bar feels small and cozy.

So much so that the audience is as startled as Frank when Rita (Anna Tesar) comes bursting onto the set in a violently-hued raincoat talking a mile a minute.

Woodley has a job keeping up with Tesar, whose vibrant speeches and costuming draw the audience's attention. But he manages, inserting Frank's dry observations with good timing, and carrying his drunken scene to a new comic level.

Rita's "improvement" is visible and audible, her clothes and her voice alter, becoming more refined and ultimately more familiar and less exotic. We mourn the old Rita along with Frank.

If there's a complaint to be made, it's that on opening night the scene changes were a little lengthy, but that's something that improves over the course of a run.

Educating Rita continues tonight and closes Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Lucille's.