The audience receives a slightly negative image of Frank in the opening scenes but recognise him as one of the most important characters in the play. On the other hand, Frank does show some humour: “you just pop off and put your head in the oven.” (p14), this makes the play a bit more humorous and makes the audience have less of a negative image of him. Rita changes Frank’s life. Later on in the play, she says, “A room is like a plant.” (p77), this reflects Frank’s incompleteness. The reason why I think this is that, from my point of view, his room needs fresh air, but there are obstacles in making this possible. The window “won’t bleedin’ budge” (p77) and the door gets stuck a lot. It is the same with Frank, he fails to attain a sense of completeness. However, when being moved to Australia, he gains some hope as things are “just beginning” (p104).
The second character we meet is a major one too. This one is Rita, a literature student, and the other most important character of the play. In Scene 1, Rita struggles to come into the room because of the “bleedin’ handle” (p14) on the door. Willy Russell uses the door metaphorically to explain how hard and painful it is for Rita to get an Education now, and also, all the decisions she is going to take, such as leaving Denny. We also learn a lot from the room, the fact that the room is full books shows all the knowledge that she is seeking to study but also how difficult this task will be for her. Rita does not feel in the right place, she feels “slightly out of step” (p24). She’s twenty-six, and she still does not have a baby, or, does not want a baby yet, instead, she wants to “discover meself first” (p24). She wants to learn and enter the world of Academics in which Frank and the students she meets later in the play are. Like Frank, Rita’s relationship with Denny is not to its best. He is against the Open University course. He’s “blind” (p24) and does not want to accept that Rita wants to discover herself before building a family. She does not want to live in a nice, big house of the middle class like Denny proposes: “move off our estate an’ get a house out in Formby” (p25), but she wants to be in the middle class, in the ‘academic circle’. She wants to speak and have a normal conversation about a famous poet with people like Frank. Later on in the play, she fails to attend Frank’s dinner party because she knows she will feel out of place there. Rita changes a lot throughout the play, at the beginning, she is nervous, uneducated and not confident enough, by the end of the play, she has matured and is able to make wise and informed decisions.
The difference between act 1 and act 2 is that, in Act 1, it is more about Rita’s growing passion and development in the world of Academics and also in the breakdown of her relationship with Denny. Act 2 on the other hand, is more about Frank, and the problem with his drinking habits, followed by his banishment to Australia for two years. However, we can see that as Rita gains more and more knowledge, and as she changes, she does not need Frank as much as in Act 1.
In this first scene, Russell uses a lot of dramatic devices. To begin with, Russell does not tell straight away the reason why Frank, the university lecturer, is “hurriedly” (p13) replacing each book on the bookshelf, instead, he creates an element of suspense, building a narrative line, keeping interest in the audience’s eyes. We directly learn that he is alcoholic, when he is desperately looking for his whisky bottle and also that he has a problem about it. Rita moves a lot in the opening scene, and this tells us a lot about her, just by looking at the way she acts in Frank’s office. Firstly, it shows she is nervous, she hasn’t been a student in a while and she does not know if she is going to make it or not. Secondly, it shows she wants to learn. She inspects everything around the room, she wants to know everything. In the next scene, Rita is oiling Frank’s door. This shows how much effort she puts in wanting to learn on this course. Frank, in scene 2, keeps looking at his watch. This doesn’t only say that Rita is late, but also shows that Frank is waiting for her, indirectly, it shows that their personal relationship is starting to develop, now that Rita is starting to get into the course. Later in the play, Russell starts to show how much Frank’s drinking problem is increasing by making him drink more and more.
In the opening scene, the way the two characters talk, and their inability to always understand each other’s cultural references or each other’s way of speaking brings humour to the play. Rita has a ‘working-class’ accent and speaks colloquially whereas Frank speaks in standard English. However, as she becomes more educated, she learns to adapt her language and grows more confident, but at the beginning, it clearly shows that her language is out of place. In Scene 1, Rita does not use the right register with Frank, and with the help of this, Frank’s relationship with Rita increases as he finds her “marvellous” (p24) and even says that she is the “first breath of air that’s been in this room for years” (p24), this also shows that their relationship grows straight from the first scene, leaving the audience in slight suspense at the end of each scene.
Russell uses Rita’s working-class strong accent and rude language to create a source of humour in the play. During the course of the play, Rita changes, and less verbal jokes can be made, but, we can see that Rita still shows humour when talking about Poets. When Rita talks to Frank about Macbeth as “bleeding great” (p59), it shows how much she is starting to like literature and her enthusiasm to plays as such. Frank however, always uses the same tone and standard English. Finally, Russell’s use of language is used in order to provide a source of humour to the play which gives entertainment for the audience.
In the opening scene, it is evident that Frank and Rita’s cultural references are completely different. This enables Russell to include jokes. When Frank asks if Rita knows Yeats, she replies “the wine lodge?” (p20), this is an example of verbal jokes that the writer uses. Rita, who comes from the working-class, is part of a community who are not concerned, and that know very little about literature. Frank, who comes from the middle-class, lives in a world of academics, where literature is very important. He shows he is getting tired of it, and at the beginning says that he knows “absolutely nothing” (p25), which in a way, shows that he doesn’t want to teach and that he is not sure whether to teach Rita or not as she is so different from the other students. When talking about E.M. Forster, Rita makes a small mistake by saying “E.M. Foster” (p17), but this tells us rather a lot. It shows that Rita does not have such a wide variety of knowledge concerning novelists unlike Frank, who knows what he is talking about. There are other examples to show their clash of cultures such as Dylan Thomas and Roger McGough, when Rita talks about a liverpudlian poet who writes simple, comic poems whereas Frank refers to a famous poet who wrote poems, more complex, more to do with literature. Their clash of cultures brings some humour to the play as well as their language, which makes the audience chose to keep on watching. The Open University, which Rita has gone to, is not like the others. It is a University that enables her to become student again and study for a degree. It is not only for studying that Rita came here, but also to enable her to fit in Frank’s social and Academic circle.
I conclude that Act 1 Scene 1 in Educating Rita does set the scene for the rest of the play. It gives the audience a sort of ‘overall ambience’ that the play has straight at the beginning. In a way, he puts almost the whole play in the first scene, although many changes occur. But the ambience in the play is described in just that first scene. The play is about the clash of cultures and personal relationships. We learn about it straight from the beginning when Frank and Rita talk about the poets, or when Frank says that she is the first breath of air that’s been in his room for years. Russell’s use of language, and dramatic devices results in many effects on the audience, such as humour, which makes them want to watch on. The Setting enables us to concentrate on the characters and their changes. In all, I think that Act 1 Scene 1 does set the scene for the rest of the play.