words yvonne teh

A good education may not always be the panacea it is cracked up to be.

Mention the words ‘Educating Rita’ and invariably images are conjured of the 1983 film which stars Golden Globe winners Julie Walters as Rita, the bubbly hairdresser seeking a university-style education, and Michael Caine as Dr Frank Bryant, the alcoholic academic charged with providing her with an introduction to the liberal arts. Even if, like educator and theatre man Andy Burt, who will direct the production of Educating Rita to be staged in Hong Kong early next month, one can’t quite remember whether one has actually seen the movie or not!

All of which goes to show how much this reworking of the Pygmalion myth – which, of course, also spawned another cinematic gem in My Fair Lady (1964), starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn – has seeped into contemporary pop culture and people’s consciousness. At the same time though, it is not as if many folks have had the chance to actually take in a performance of Willy Russell’s award-winning 1980 play.

Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the work was written for just two performers and one set. While that might seem to place an enormous responsibility on the actors and director, Burt sees it as an opportunity for him and his players, Holly Aston and Adam West, to work directly from the text to showcase their own interpretations of a play which contains a lot of pertinent ideas about what education really should be about.

Although Educating Rita is now over three decades old, Burt’s sense is that, while it still possesses the charm of its period, it doesn’t feel at all dated. “It does feel very specific to the culture of Rita from Liverpool,” he says, “and Frank is definitely a British academic rather than an Australian or American in terms of the way he speaks.” Yet, he says, it also is not just a play for Britons.

“People are going to hear that these characters have British accents. But the things that they’re talking about are much more relevant to different places, different times. I think it goes back round to [the fact that] these ideas are not new, they’re from Socrates! I am a school teacher and I believe very firmly in a liberal arts education.” Like that espoused in Educating Rita. And it’s from the viewpoint of a HKSAR-based educationist and theatre veteran he believes that the play has “a lot of relevance for now and it has a relevance for Hong Kong, because in Hong Kong you’ve got a lot of people who are desperately trying to get themselves an education at any cost.”

While the intense mass pursuit of an education might appear, at least on the surface, to be something an educator would welcome, Burt worries. “Sometimes I think [those who chase education] don’t always bother to think about what that will do for them,” he says. As initially was the case for Educating Rita’s eponymous character, “It is just some sort of baggage to get under their belt, to be a passport to an imaginary better life.” Consequently, he gets very animated and impassioned when pointing out that Willy Russell’s play directly addresses this issue.

“The message of the play is that learning is great but you’ve also got to ask, got to think, what is it for? How are you going to use it? How is it going to inform your life? It’s not important just knowing the facts.” For even while Educating Rita is often described as a comedy, as with the works of Chekhov Frank introduces to Rita, it is far from farce or stand-up. Instead, it is “a play that examines life and sets out to explore certain truths about the human condition and present a balanced ending.” In short, it is intended to educate, not just entertain, its audience.

Educating Rita will be performed at the HK Arts Centre’s McAulay Studio Theatre from March 4 to 8. Showtime is 8pm each evening. Tickets are $220 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.