Theatre reviews: Educating Rita | Breathtaking Roads

Educating Rita, Dundee Rep ★★★★

Breathtaking Roads, Oran Mor, Glasgow ★★★

In an age when politicians are always tub-thumping about “change”, while rarely specifying what they mean by it, a visit to the theatre can provide some useful perspective. Good plays, after all, are essentially about change, taking us and the characters on a journey to a place subtly or drastically different from where we began; and no play more so than Willy Russell’s much-loved 1980 hit Educating Rita, now revived at Dundee Rep for a two week summer run.

The play is set in the study of a middle-aged lecturer called Frank, at a university in Liverpool; and chronicles the development, over a year or so, of his relationship with Rita, a working class Open University student. Their world, of course, is one barely recognisable today; a world where drunken university teachers prone to affairs with students could still rely on the certainty of tenure, and where working-class people – on the brink of the Thatcher revolution – had known decades of rising material prosperity.

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What is all too familiar, though, is the role of higher education in providing a highway into middle class life, and the resentment it generates among those who feel “left behind”; and in Debbie Hannan’s sharp-eyed production, Grace Galloway charts Rita’s transformation from 29-year-old unhappily married hairdresser to hyper-intellectual radical student with a gawky energy and grace that’s both poignant, and completely charismatic. It’s a transition, though, that involves real pain and rupture, as well as moments of revelation and joy. And opposite Rita, Frank is undergoing a transition even more painful, as their relationship exposes both the limits of his academic world, and the pure pain of nurturing a much-loved student only to see her spread her wings and move on.

Richard Conlon – stepping in to the role at very short notice – makes a fine job of capturing Frank’s infuriating mix of intellectual arrogance and real existential distress, as his drink problem worsens. And all of this unfolds, at Dundee, on an intriguing study set by Jen McGinley and lighting designer Michaella Fee that is riddled with cracks – in the floor, round the bookshelves – through which light pours in between scenes; suggesting that while Frank’s academic world still has the power to transform Rita’s life, the wisdom and enlightenment it offers is itself open to rupture and change, and is far from telling the whole story of this brilliant and enduringly powerful play.

Change and transition are also afoot in the latest Play, Pie Pint lunchtime drama, now en route to Kirkcaldy. Co-produced with Stellar Quines, Ryan Hay’s Breathtaking Roads is set in the bar of a small hotel in Skye, where the owner’s teenage offspring is in temporary charge when Auntie Helen arrives with her longtime partner Jane, after a thrilling journey from Glasgow on her new Harley motorbike.

In their very different ways, brusque Helen and thoughtful Jane both note that the youngster seems exceptionally silent and preoccupied; and when they return a year later, it seems that he/she has undergone a transition, changing their name to Ruari, and experimenting with an increasingly masculine style of dress.

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What follows is a slightly stilted exploration of current tensions in the LGBTQ community, in which young Ruari mounts an attack on Helen for living like a man, but lacking the courage to become one; and Helen has to make decisions about the proud lesbian identity she has embraced for so long.

In Caitlin Skinner’s production, all of this is handled with some flair by Liz Kettle and Jill Riddiford as Helen and Jane, and with a kind of furious youthful uncertainty by Ros Watt as Ruari. And if an uneasy peace breaks out in the end, the dark figure of a male biker in heavy leather gear, who haunts both Helen and Ruari during the play, still seem to linger in the background of the story, as some kind of threat, or promise.

Educating Rita is at Dundee Rep until 13 June; Breathtaking Roads is at the King’s Theatre, Kirkcaldy, 2-6 June.

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