Worksheet 9.

1 Willy Russell, Educating Rita Review

Gabriel Kunz

A pla re ie Educating Rita a play of transformation and development

The pla Educating Rita written b the English pla wright Will Russell was first presented on

stage in London in The overall theme of the pla is Rita s transformation and development

from an uneducated, dissatisfied woman with no self-confidence into a new person gradually

educating and liberating herself from her social background and her teacher Frank.

The play opens with Rita, a 26-year-old hairdresser, attending an Open University course in the

attempt to discover herself, better her living conditions and have real choices. She meets her tutor

Frank Bryant, a frustrated poet and academic in his early fifties.

In the course of Act I Frank is often taken aback b Rita s unconventional refreshing and emotional

approach to literature. At the same time, it is his him who has the responsibility to teach and

support Rita in passing exams. Therefore, he explains to her that she has to restrain her emotional

thoughts and refer to established literary authorities in her essays in order to pass exams.

Half way through the play Rita attends a summer school in London and comes back a changed

person, having grown in confidence and understanding. Having split up with her husband who has

always been against her studying, she has moved in with a fellow student, Trish. With her

newfound knowledge including arrogance, Rita analyses literature in controlled, analytic terms and

loses her mind s spontaneit and originalit This development implicates a more distant relation to

Frank. He becomes more depressed and frustrated with his life while his drinking habit

deteriorates.

In the end Rita s flatmate Trish attempts suicide showing Rita that there is more to life than art and

literature. She and Frank part as friends, with the an unclear future for both of them.

The development of the pla s action clearl corresponds with its division into two acts

whilst the first act is separated in eight scenes, the second act only counts seven scenes. These two

halves consist of a series of conversations between Rita and Frank. But all of these conversations do

not only deal with literature, but with their private lives as well.

Russell also uses the literary technique of a frame story. In the very first scene Rita announces

determindly that Frank would have his hair cut the next time they meet. In the last scene of Act II

the pla wright refers back to this first scene and Rita s promise to cut Frank s hair as she slips into

her role of hairdresser and prepares to take ten years off him p l b cutting his hair

The whole pla is set in Frank s office at an Victorian-built university in the north of England.

(cf. stage directions p. 7). One can conclude that this university is located in Liverpool as Frank lives

in its suburb Formby (cf. p. 19, l. 7) and Rita is a Liverpudlian.

Even though man different locations more precisel Rita s home the pub the hairdressing salon

the bistro and the summer school, are mentioned, none of the scenes are set there. Whereas Frank

is only associated with one setting throughout the pla Rita s character is connected with changing

locations as she, for instance, moves from her home with Denny to a flat shared with Trish.

Furthermore the pla is set sometime in the s At this time the working class s situation was

more than uneasy: a high level of unemployment, low salaries and poverty inevitably lead to

dissatisfaction and anger which again lead to many major strikes.

Worksheet 9.2 Willy Russell, Educating Rita Review

Gabriel Kunz

Rita and Frank are both the pla s main characters With regard to the terms protagonist and

antagonist one can notice that they two serve both functions at different times. In the first act,

which deals slightly more with Rita, it is Frank who serves as antagonist. In contrast, the second

act put more accent on Frank than Rita, who now serves as antagonist.

In addition, they can be called round characters because these two evidently develop in the

course of the play and change their attitudes towards literature.

In the beginning, Rita is an outspoken, honest person having a great natural thirst to learn. She is

quite enthousiastic about literature, but has to learn almost everything regarding subjective

literary critism. Her behaviour is unconventional because of her spontaneous, direct and

passionate reactions to art, literature and her fellow human beings. During Act II her fundemental

change becomes apparent: She has developed into an educated, almost arrogant woman having

gained self-confidence and self-determination. In fact, she has become more reasonable

a change which implicates surpressing her directness, honesty and spontaneity.

Frank on the contrar is reserved at first but then starts to recogni e Rita s uniqueness and is

fascinated by her enthousiasm, her energy and her independent mind. Due to the fact that Rita is

totally unaware of literature and traditional methods to approach it, he is forced to explain and

justify even the most basic concepts. But at the same time, he finds himself in a dilemma:

he is afraid that once she has learned the conventional methods of approaching literature she will

surpress her refreshing spontaneity and honesty in order to pass exams. Worst of all, he himself

would be responsible for an such change When he reali es Rita s new behaviour and

personality, his drinking problem deteriorates, he starts cursing and becomes even more

dependent on their weekly courses than Rita.

In Educating Rita Frank and Rita come from different social classes: Rita is a working class

woman and Frank a member of the middle class.

The social differences between the characters can be seen in the language and vocabulary they use.

On the one hand Rita s earl language is typical of non-standart English used by the working class. It

is characterized by colloquial expressions and slang with a limited range of vocabulary, simple

sentence structures and the repeated use of abbreviations.

On the other hand, Frank speaks upper-class English. Unlike Rita, he is able to formulate his

thoughts fluently in longer, more complicated sentences without using slang or abbreviated words.

His vocabulary is clearly more sophisticated and wider.

Consequently, through their different language their communication often does not work leading

inevitably to comical and humorous misunderstandings.

Russell often makes use of symbolism to give additional meaning to a point he is making.

First the most obvious e ample is Rita s change of name to highlight her transformation from Susan

the uneducated hairdresser, to Rita, the admirer of pulp fiction and then back to Susan, as she

accepts herself as she is.

Second Frank s stud is an important s mbol because it totall represents the traditional approach

to literature he is supposed to teach. It not only illustrates the kind of work he does, but also the

type of person he is, an academic who appreciates literature and seeks knowledge.

That is why Rita tells Frank that this is the sort of room she wants to have one day because it stands

for being educated.

Worksheet 9.3 Willy Russell, Educating Rita Review

Gabriel Kunz

Third it is Rita s habit to bu new dresses having a s mbolic meaning as well Whenever Rita started

to feel the that there was something msissing in her life she went out to buy another dress

(p. 24, l. 3) . But one day, she realized that always buying new dresses does not give her a true sense

of fulfillment, but rather a feeling of happiness for a limited period of time. Those new dresses were

a symbol of standstill and her continuous behaviour.

Will Russell s pla also contains man important themes the most important one being education

and literature.

Rita s character highlights impressivel the value of education for personal development For Rita,

who wants to break away from her meaningsless life, education means emancipation, liberation and

having a prospect. As a result, the process of becoming educated is more than gaining access to a

better job and a higher social class, it also helps people to recognize and develop their own potential

which they feel is within themselves, just like Rita.

Another important theme to mention is the differences and the divisions between the social classes,

as Rita and Frank come from different ones. These different social backgrounds do not only become

apparent in their language as mentioned above, but also in their social mores, their behaviour and

their views on the world and on literature. The division between the social classes in reinforced by

education because young working class people often leave school with hardly any qualifications.

Hence the cpoor and uneducated working class is at great disadvantage in contrast to the middle

class Moreover the pla wright also critici es the working class s nostalgic view of the past, its

inflexibility preventing people from developing and unleashing their full potential.

Will Russell s intention was to write a pla which for one thing entertains and for another thing

makes its audience aware of the impact of education for one s own development In the

introduction for the text edition of his play he wrote:

I wanted to make a play which engaged and was relevant to those who had no knowledge of

literature, those who considered themselves uneducated, those whose daily language is not the

language of the universit or the theatre (p. 5, ll. 24 ff.). It was his main aim to write a play which

can be understood by people with no knowledge and no understanding of English literature.

However, instead of refusing this pla these uneducated people could understand through Rita s

initial approach what all the allusions to famous pieces of literature actually represent.

Finally, in my opinion, Willy Russell has created a truly great piece of literature. I adore its

simpleness as only two characters are introduced and only one setting is used throughout the play.

Educating Rita is a pla which, in order to be understood, [does] [not] require a greater degree of

information than that contained in the in the pla itself (p. 5, ll. 16 ff.). This statement taken from

Will Russell s introduction strengthens the pla s simpleness

Therefore, I can highly recommend this play to everybody because of its amusing dialogues,

its transforming and developing characters and its powerful message.