‘How does Willy Russell make the opening scene dramatic and entertaining? In what ways is it a good introduction to the characters and themes of the play?’
‘Educating Rita’ is a short play by Willy Russell, which was written in 1985. The play is about a 26 year old woman who hasn’t had a proper education and wants to find herself before giving into her husband and having a baby. The other main character is a man called Frank who is a teacher at a university, is in his mid fifties and is an alcoholic. In the play the settings never change; the play always takes place in Frank’s office. There are only two characters in the whole of the play, however other people are mentioned and we get an idea of Rita and Frank’s views on them.
I think the opening scene in plays is the most important. It is the scene where we get our first impressions on the characters and I believe Willy Russell does a good job in making it entertaining and dramatic. At the start of the first scene we meet Frank who is looking through books on a bookshelf to find a bottle of whiskey. I was curious as to why a teacher was hiding bottles of whiskey. This also indicated he was an alcoholic. I believe this was one of the ways Willy Russell was making the opening scene dramatic because you don’t expect a teacher to be drunk at work or to get away with it. It also suggests that there’s more to Frank and reasons why he does drink. This interests the audience and makes them want to read on to find out more.
Language plays a big part of the entertainment in this play. The way Frank speaks to Julia on the phone helps to form my first impressions about Frank because it is the first time we hear him speak. We hear him say things such as ‘yes, I probably shall go to the pub afterwards. I shall need to go to the pubs afterwards, ‘what do you mean am I determined to go to the pub? I don’t need determination to get me into the pub’. This proves to me that Frank is indeed an alcoholic and he doesn’t seem to have any shame about his drinking. Again, this is entertaining because you do not expect a teacher to be drunk. From this I think it is obvious that he does not have a good relationship with Julia because if he did he wouldn’t have to drink and he wouldn’t be talking to her like that. His tone is sarcastic especially when he says ‘what do you mean am I determined to go to the pub? I don’t need determination to get me into the pub’, which is very humorous. He also says ‘I will need to wash away the memory of some silly woman’s attempts to get into the mind of Henry James’. This is humorous because a teacher should not be talking about his pupil like that, instead he should be encouraging them and helping them but he doesn’t seem to want to. A long with his drinking this paints a picture of a bad teacher who has lost interest in his job and is only still doing it to pay for his addiction. Frank also doesn’t seem to have a good relationship with his girlfriend and I think this because he says: ‘ look if you’re trying to induce some feeling of guilt in me over the prospect of a burnt dinner…because, darling I like my lamb done to the point of abuse and even I know that ratatouille cannot be burnt’. This quote says to me he doesn’t care what his girlfriend thinks and he doesn’t mind having an arrogant attitude towards her. It looks like he has no respect for her and although it is unfair on Julia, the way Willy Russell has worded the conversation makes it highly amusing because we are just getting Franks side of the phone call. When he puts the phone down he says ‘yes, that’s it you just pop off and put your head in the oven’ The audience would find this amusing but they would also be shocked at his behaviour towards his girlfriend, because you would expect somebody to care, like and respect their girlfriend. It’s funny because it shows he’s a coward because he couldn’t say it down the phone to her, which is probably because he is scared of what she’d do if he’d have said it to her.
