Educating Rita

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Educating Rita                                                                                 Katy-Leigh Bogin

     Recently, I have been studying a play called ‘Educating Rita’, by Willy Russell.

The comedy was first produced at the Liverpool Playhouse in February 1981 and was made into a film, produced by Lewis Gilbert in 1983, starring Michael Caine (Dr. Frank Bryant) and Julie Walters (Rita White). It was revised and re-written by Willy Russell in March 2003 for the reason that it is used for examinations. In this essay, in order to answer the question successfully, Examine Franks growing sense of unease as Rita becomes more educated, I am going to focus closely on; the characters, the structure of the play, the language used, and the relationships shared between characters, especially between Frank and Rita.

     Willy Russell originally wrote the play in 1981, just a few years after The Pill

was introduced. The Pill, also known as the combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP), or the birth-control pill, was one of the first forms of contraception that allowed women to have sexual freedom and control pregnancies. The Pill is a tablet containing two female hormones, oestrogen, and progestogen. These two hormones stop a woman from ovulating (producing an egg) each month, therefore they wouldn’t get pregnant. Today, about 100 million women worldwide, 3.5 million women in the UK alone, use The Pill.

     There are only two main characters throughout the play: Rita and Frank. But are also many minor characters that are only mentioned in the stage directions but they still have a significant part to the play when it comes to events and character relationships. These minor characters include: Rita’s husband, Denny, her mother, her flat-mate, Trish, Frank’s partner, Julia, and a student, Tiger.

     Rita White is a young woman of only twenty-six years of age, who was born and raised as a person of working class. Rita is currently unhappy with her life working as a women’s hairdresser, as she wants to truly discover herself before having children with her husband, Denny. Her real name is Susan but she changed it to Rita after the author Rita Mae Brown who wrote her favourite novel, ‘Rubyfruit Jungle.’ Rita’s ideal lifestyle is to be educated and become middle class, like her tutor, Frank, who she looks up to. Her husband, Denny, expects her to have a child but she has been on The Pill, and secretly carried on taking it. This is because she wants to discover who she really is before she has a baby, and she plans to do this through education.

     Frank Bryant is a middle-aged man of middle class who works as an experienced lecturer of literature, but starts a tutoring course at an open university. He has a bad drink problem and is often drunk whilst teaching his students, and spends most of his free time in the pub. Frank used to be a poet, but stopped writing after he split up with his wife over poetry and now has a new partner, an ex-student, Julia.

     Rita’s husband, Denny comes across as quite a selfish person who doesn’t give the time to actually understand his wife’s wants and needs. He fails to support Rita’s attempts to educate herself and he expects her to have children. He is unaware that Rita is still secretly taking The Pill, as she knows he won’t understand the fact she wants to discover herself before having a baby. In the end their marriage breaks down, as Denny doesn’t let Rita have any freedom. He doesn’t like her going to her tutorials and doesn’t like her studying at home; therefore, Rita has to study at work.

     Like Rita, her mother senses that there must be more to life than wasting time just sitting around in the pub and having a few drinks, “There must be better songs to sing than this…” Unless Rita changes her lifestyle, the audience realise she will end up like her mother, wasting opportunities, such as education.

     After Rita’s marriage breakdown, she moves into a flat with Trish. Her new flat-mate becomes a big role model for Rita as she is desperate to change. Rita almost idolises Trish until the end of the play, when Rita is able to finally see Trish for what she really is. Her attempted suicide reflects that she has her own problems and weaknesses in life.

     Frank’s partner, Julia, is one of his ex-students. After his marriage breakdown, Frank begins to live with Julia, but the audience get the impression their relationship is quite tense. We see this at the beginning of the play when Frank is on the phone to Julia, “Julia, if you’re trying to induce feelings of guilt… you’d have been better cooking something other than lamb and ratatouille.” It seems that Julia also has an issue with Frank’s drink problem.

     Tiger, so-called because of his surname ‘Tyson’, is a leading figure among the students at the university. In Act 2 he becomes a potential love interest for Rita, and Frank becomes very jealous of him when he invites Rita to go to France with a group of his student friends.

     At the beginning of Act 1, Scene 1, the audience are introduced to Frank. He is talking to himself, “To my dear Charlie Dickens, genius and keeper of the scotch.” Straight away this is hinting to the audience that Franks has a drink problem. We are then introduced to Julia, Frank’s partner, as he is talking to her on the telephone, “Julia, Juliaa!” Again, the audience are shown that Frank is an alcoholic whilst he is talking to Julia, “I promise…just a couple of pints… four!” Rita, the, “Open University woman” then arrives for the first time to be tutored by Frank and knocks on the door as Frank is saying goodbye to Julia, “yes…bye-bye…come in!...COME IN!”

     When Rita enters she has a big impact on the audience as her entrance is very bold. She bursts in after not being able to get in because of the broken door handle, “I am comin’ in aren’t I? It’s that bleeding handle on the door. Y’ wanna get it fixed!” Her attitude and personality have a big impact on the audience. Her personality is very loud and catches Frank’s attention almost instantly, “One of these days you’ll be shouting “Come in!” and it’ll go on forever… because the poor bastard on the other side won’t be able to come in.” This is a metaphor of Rita wanting what is on the other side. She wants to become educated but Frank doesn’t want to teach her as he doesn’t want her to change. She believes that ‘the grass is greener on the other side.’

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Her lack of knowledge, Liverpudlian accent, constant swearing, and joking also all stands out. Rita’s lack of knowledge shows when she doesn’t know how tutors are meant to act or what their meant to do, “Aren’t you meant to be interviewing me?” Rita likes Frank’s room as, “it’s like a lovely mess,” and the painting on the wall catches her attention. She describes it as “erotic,” and asks Frank whether he agrees. He replies, “I suppose it is” and her response is, “There’s no suppose about it-look at those tits.” This allows the audience to clearly see both of the ...

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