Body Text of this Coursework
The first scene that I am going to analyse is Act 1 scene 7. In this scene Rita should look like she wants to open herself up and let Frank see her real background. Frank should acknowledge the trust the Rita is giving him and show concern and also help and advise Rita in what to do. This is the scene in which Frank and Rita discuss the night before; the night Frank invited Rita for dinner. In this scene, Frank’s voice should be arrogant and angry. This is because he invited Rita for dinner and she never turned up. Rita tried to explain to Frank that she had written him a note on the back of her essay. Though to Frank this was “ “sorry couldn’t come” on the back of your essay thrust trough the door.” This dialogue is directed to Rita in a way that she could have at least said something personal. This means that Franks voice should be arrogant and angry. In this scene Rita should have a sharp voice, she should answer straight away after Frank, she may also snap at Frank. For example when she says, “What does the word “sorry” mean if it’s not an apology?” This should be quickly snapped in after Frank has finished. This means that Rita is trying to avoid Frank losing his temper and also preventing Frank to heavily drink. In the scene there should be no long pauses, this is due to a fact that they are criticising each other about the night before. They talk about Rita bringing the wrong wine and Rita forgetting her knowledge on literature, Rita criticising Frank about how he did not understand how Rita felt. In this scene the movement is very minimal, the only real movement is when Frank walks behind Rita and leans on the back of her chair. This shows Frank’s feelings to Rita, he is trying to get closer to her.
The other main part of this scene is the part where Rita describes to Frank what she does after looking through his window and backing out. Once she visited Frank’s house she “Went back to the pub where Denney was, an’ me mother, an’ our Sandra, an’ her mates.” This shows that she feels that she classes her self lower by returning to her family and leaving the educated class behind. At the pub she decided that she wasn’t going to return to the Open University.” She explained to Frank that she came back because he Mother started to cry, she started to cry because she thought that they “could sing better songs than those.” This quote may mean two things; one being that she didn’t like the song that was playing on the jukebox, or a more likely option that they were showing themselves as a lower class. This is because if you get drunk and start singing any song that comes on, you show yourself as a lower class person. This is what Rita changed her mind about. She decided she wanted to “sing another song”, she wanted to have an education and get somewhere in life, not just down the pub each night, and working in a hairdresser. Towards the end of this scene she feels determined to carry on being educated and she didn’t care what other people thought.
In this scene there should be a level of class that they are both on, in my opinion Frank should lower his class, this would make Rita understand more and it would also make Rita feel more comfortable.
Now I will talk about Act 2 Scene 5.
In this scene Rita tells Frank how good his poems really are. She turns up on a non-lesson day. This is just to tell Frank that his poems are good. She then explains how if she saw these poems at the start of the course she would of called them “a pile of shit”. This shows that Rita thinks she has improved her literature skills. This shows that she is positive and self-believing. She should be open-minded and positive, whereas Frank should listen and take in the feedback Rita is providing. He then goes onto being arrogant and tells Rita what his poetry really was, “This clever, pyrotechnical pile of self-conscious allusion is worthless, talentless, shit and could be recognised as such by anyone with a shred of common sense.” When he starts the bit of his speech he should have no self-respect and he is insulting Rita in the way of telling her that her thoughts of this were totally wrong, and anybody with a shred of common sense can see it. Rita returns this speech by a long piece of dialogue telling Frank that he is a “Self-Pitying Piss Artist.” This means that Rita is telling Frank he is a piteous alcoholic. She saying that Frank doesn’t like it now she is educated and “grow-up”, she is saying she is less gullible.
