In the same way, Willy Russell bases his experiences on Frank, though not as much as with Rita. Willy Russell was also a teacher for a period of time and shares the same love of writing as Frank. In a way, Rita is Willy Russell when he was working class and Frank is he when he became educated.
If I were doing a production of ‘Educating Rita’, the actress I would cast as Rita would be Jennifer Saunders because she is interesting to have in a conversation-like Rita she changes subjects very abruptly, and would do well playing the part of an uneducated person, but would also be able to show the progression to an educated middle class woman. She has a very expressional face and can show emotions on it easily, which is useful because Rita goes through so many different phrases. When we first meet her she must be quite bubbly and confusing, changing the topic of conversation quickly and abruptly. Her words must be cut off and she must speak quickly to show the audience how highly strung she is:
“Well that’s no good always meanin’ to, is it? Y’should get on with it; one of these days you’ll be shoutin’ ‘Come in’ an’ it’ll go on forever because the poor sod on the other side won’t be able to get in. An’ you won’t be able to get out.” (Pg2, Act 1 Scene 1)
The actress should read this very quickly and breathlessly and she must cut off her words. It must be like a blast of speech to further highlight the shock and uniqueness of Rita. Towards the end she must slow down her words and not cut them off, for example when she speaks the significant speech, “Yeh. An’ it might be worthless in the end. But I had a choice. I chose, me. Because of what you’d given me I had a choice. I wanted to come back an’ tell y’ that. That y’ a good teacher.” (Act 2 Scene 7) she must speak it slowly and clearly. Although she still cuts off her words it mustn’t be as obvious. This shows the reader how much she has progressed as a person and shows she has mellowed a lot.
At the beginning, the actress playing Rita must walk around a lot and not sit down. This shows how uptight she is, again, and helps us to see how hyperactive and bubbly she is. Towards the end of the play she must again start to walk slower and sit down occasionally. This helps to show how she has relaxed and trusts Frank. For example at the beginning there are stage directions for Rita like “(wandering round to the door)” and “(getting up and wandering round)” whilst Frank sits down (Act 1, Scene 1). At the end of the play there are stage directions like “(Rita perches on the small table…)”and “(going and sitting on a tea chest). (Act 2, Scene 7). She has relaxed a lot more and the actress must reflect this in the above ways.
I would cast Ricky Tomlinson as Frank. This is because he has the similar dry wit as Frank and he would be able to look scruffy and drunk and pull it off. At the beginning of the play he must appear superior and middle class, that is, appear like what he is to Rita, a humbling figure, clever, sophisticated, a role model. This helps to show the audience what he is to Rita and allows them to see through her eyes. He must be much more literate than Rita, not cut off his words and draw them out.
Frank doesn’t change much through the play; it is only our feelings that change and the actor must play on this to achieve optimum viewing. At the beginning, the first thing we see is Frank drinking before he goes on the phone talking to his wife:
“(S.D) He manages a gulp at the whisky before he picks up the receiver and although his speech is not slurred we should recognise this as the voice of a man who shifts a lot of booze.”
This shows he is a heavy drinker and relies on drink to cope with problems. It also tells us he is an unprofessional tutor to be drinking in his office. The viewers will get this impression too, so to make it even clearer the actor must use facial expressions that are associated with drinking a lot-swigging a lot straight out the bottle, wincing as he gulps it and so on. He must make us disapprove of him immediately, almost as soon as he walks onstage. In this retrospect, Higgins differs to Frank because Higgins is portrayed as being perfect.
However, in the middle of the play he is becoming more of a pity figure for us, we feel sorry for him because he has changed Rita, something he didn’t want to do and is suffering for it. Therefore during these parts the actor playing Frank must do his best to provoke sympathy. One example is when Rita tells this to Frank:
“Rita? No one calls me Rita but you. I dropped that pretentious crap as soon as I saw it for what it was. You stupid…No one calls me Rita.” (Act 2, Scene 5)
In scenes like this he must make large helpless gestures with his arms and his face must be a mask of misery and generally show what he is feeling inside but also show how he is trying to hide it behind his anger.
In the rest of the play Frank sits down much of the time showing he is rational and a calm man. It also shows up Rita, making the way she walks round so much even more obvious to the audience. Sitting down also shows how much the person is ready to work-for example Frank is prepared to work in most scenes and is sitting down waiting for Rita to join him, whereas Rita is less inclined to sit down and do it and the beginning. In Act 1 Scene 2 the stage direction, “(She opens her bag and takes out the copy of ‘Howard’s End’, ring bound file, notepad, ruler and pencil case, placing them methodically on the desk.) shows Rita is ready to work but Frank ignores her and just expects her to talk, in a way he undervalues the way Rita is changing.
When Frank is drunk however, like in Act 2, Scene 3, he must show the audience this very clearly and make us feel disgust at his unprofessional attitude, but also sorrow because we know he only drinks when he has a problem and it shows how much Rita has got to us. This, I feel, is what Willy Russell wants to achieve in this scene. For example, the stage direction “(lying flat on the floor)” which is repeated several times through this scene shows us how drunk he is, how he has let his rationality go and is confiding in Rita about the students. He expects Rita to be on his side about it, but she isn’t:
“Maybe they did it for your own good.”
This makes us feel sorry for Frank, whilst the fact he is drunk makes us disgusted with him. Therefore the actor playing Frank has to look both drunk and troubled in scenes like this, which is very hard because when you are drunk you are carefree, that’s why people drink. I would suggest being drunk all the way through, but when Rita says something like the above he would be lying on the floor, so he could just raise his head a little or grunt, to remind us he is there and make us feel sorry for him.
In this way, I think the actors reflect what Willy Russell is trying to conjure in ‘Educating Rita’-the gradual changing of Rita and Frank and the sorrow of Frank to change her. It reflects all the problems and troubles they go through and makes the ending a little better to see, as well as leaving it on a question mark.
Rita is a character who goes through a lot of changes in the play and in the same way her clothing does. At first I would dress Rita quite outrageously, with no dress sense and a very wacky way of dressing. This would reflect her nature at the time-she is innocent and new to how people expect you to dress. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her or her style and shows her personality-outrageous, wacky, fun. The clothes must not look expensive to remind the viewer Rita is working class. However, as the play wears on and we see Rita change, her clothing style must begin to change too and become slowly more typical of a middle class person. For example, in Act 2 Scene 1, she must be wearing less outrageous clothes but the clothes must still be quite cheap. We can tell this is what Willy Russell intended in this scene because there is a stage direction echoing the above:
”(Rita bursts through the door. She is dressed in new, second hand clothes)”(Act 2, Scene 1)
Towards the end I would like her to wear quite sophisticated clothing-maybe start wearing suits and more expensive clothes. This shows her progression as a person from an innocent, wonderful person who isn’t afraid to show herself for what she is but who is uneducated and simple, to a middle class, intelligent woman who is in fashion and aware of how other people dress and thinks about what other people think of her.
On the other hand, the opposite should happen to Frank. At the beginning I would like him to dress well and as a middle class gentleman, for example in suits and ties. Then, when Rita starts to dress better, he must gradually get worst, until towards the end Rita is dressing better than him. This shows the audience that Frank is still living very much in the past, he wants the old Rita back, and shows Rita has become cleverer than Frank in a way.
The setting of the play stays the same all the way through with the same props in use. The play is shot in an office in a university, so the main props would be a desk, a couple of chairs, a window, a door that needs an oiling and a bookcase. These vary in importance from scene to scene. For example, in Act 1, Scene 2, the window needs to be very prominent because Frank and Rita are looking through it at a scene that we can’t see, so for this scene I would position the window at the back of the stage but move everything around it back a bit.
The window scene is a very important scene because it gives us a view of the life Rita would like to have. She wants freedom and opportunities and believes the students who lie around outside the window are superior to her and live an idealistic existence. This is not a real and practical view on life but it is what Rita feels she wants and feels she is missing out on. The window is just what it says, a window that allows us to see into Rita’s dreams and allows her to see into the life she wants.
I would make Frank and Rita stand near the window when they are performing, so our focus is drawn to the window. However, the actors need to make sure they don’t turn their back on the audience completely; they can look out of the window at an angle where the audience can see their face. This is so vital expressions and clues of speech can be seen.
Something that would change throughout the play would be the lay out of the room. When Frank is working, the room would need to be quite tidy, and everything in its place, but when he is relaxing, as in Act 2 Scene 5 and Act 1 Scene 6, the room would be less orderly and more natural, for example the window might be open, papers might be spilt over the desk, a coffee cup might be on a table, and so on. This helps us to see Frank naturally, when he isn’t working, as a normal person.
When there is trouble, or going to be an argument, the room would also be slightly messier. This warns us that something is different and something is going to happen. It also symbolises dishevel and pandemonium, which is what an argument causes. I would want the room to look like this in scenes like Act 2 Scene 5 where they argue about Frank’s poetry and let out their pent up anger on each other.
To show the passing of seasons I would make the stage lit in different quantities. When it is summer, there would be a lot of light on stage that must appear to sift through the window and in autumn the light would be mellower, slightly more dusk-like. The clothing would also help to indicate what season it is. If I want to show the passing of some time, I would do what Willy Russell suggests in stage directions and black out the stage for a few seconds. This would be done in Act 2 Scene 6, as below:
“Yes…I think she works there…Rita White…No, no. Sorry…Erm. What is it?… Susan White? No?…Thank you…Thanks…
(The lights fade to blackout to denote the passing of some time…)
I think Act 1 Scene 1 is crucial to the play because it introduces the two characters and sets the scene for us. It allows us to be familiarised with the characters and their backgrounds. When the curtains open we must see Frank and our first impression must be one of respect and interest, we must become involved at once. We see him searching through a bookcase and this interests us at once. When he speaks the first words, they must be loud enough for us to hear but also be a mutter, as if he is muttering to himself. He must look confused and puzzled but triumphant when he remembers and finds what he is looking for. The words, “Dickens” must be spoken with a realisation and his facial expression must match this realisation. He mustn’t be facing the bookcase during this section so we can see and pick up on his facial expressions, so I would position the bookcase at a 90-degree angle to the stage:
When the telephone rings he must be startled for a moment and look guilty and wary as if he knows he has done something wrong but irritated, relieved and impatient as he realises his partner is on the phone and speaks these words:
“Of course I’m still here….Because I’ve got this Open University woman coming, haven’t I?…Tch…”
Then he must appear like a resigned partner, putting up with the fussy wife, look tired and appear to not be able to get a word in edgeways. The knock on the door should be a welcome distraction and an excuse to get off the phone, so when Rita knocks he should look relieved and eager to get off the phone, but show us he is unable to. He must be very surprised at Rita when she first comes in, because she is so unusual and startling. For example, whilst the interchange on page 3 is going on he must look confused and show the audience this:
Frank: “You are?”
Rita: “What am I?”
Frank: “Pardon?”
Rita: “What?”
He must scratch his head, a clear sign he is confused and a big gesture, which the audience can pick up easily. When Rita starts to talk about the erotic painting he must look embarrassed and try to avoid the subject. It must be obvious that not many people come out so blatantly and talk about the painting. While this part of the conversation is going on it would be useful to have him put his hand on his forehead, a gesture indicating hopelessness, and draw his hand over his mouth in a downward motion. This lets the audience pick up his unwillingness to discuss the painting. The lines below are an example of how this conversation must be spoken:
Rita:“Y’don’t paint pictures just so that people can admire the brush strokes do y’?”
Frank:(Giving a short laugh) “No-no-you’re probably right.”
So far in the play Rita must seem to be confident and shameless, unembarrassed, while Frank will still be recovering from surprise and shock. To make Rita look confident and fresh, she would need to move around a lot and seem very enthusiastic, talk fast and with a bounce in her voice. She must change the subject quickly and well. Frank must let her do this so that we can see he is still surprised.
Once they get onto the subject of more literate things, like ‘Howard’s End’ on page 5, Frank must take over a bit more and feel more in control. We must be able to see this as an audience by the way he calms and looks happier. By the stage direction (he gets up and pours the drinks) we can see he is feeling more in control and more like a tutor.
After that, it must be more obvious the differences between Frank and Rita. At this point we don’t see the similarities so the two actors must make every effort to be very different. For example, while Rita looks around and does most of the talking, Frank must sit down and listen more. We must notice the intellectual differences too, and the actors can show us this by the way they speak:
Rita: “Y’know, someone who objected to swearin’.”
Frank: “How did you know I wouldn’t object?”
The way Rita cuts off her words in this quote in comparison to the longer words Frank speaks shows us how much cleverer Frank is on first appearances. Rita must appear more innocent, for example, when they are talking about assonance on page 8, line 7-22, Rita must genuinely not know but be very interested. If she nods her head while Frank explains and stops walking round this will help us tell she is interested. It will help if she looks straight at him too, because from the moment she enters she shouldn’t look straight at Frank so that we can see she is not ready to confront him and respects him as a more intelligent being, until now, when she is actually acknowledging him.
Whilst the exchange about Rita name is going on Rita must appear that it all makes sense, which it does to her, by shrugging her shoulders and saying her name in a very light hearted manner when asked, with no further explanation than that. She should appear like she has just remembered something when Frank says:
“ Rita. Mmm. It says here Mrs S. White”
Frank should be quite insecure again here, losing some of the confidence from his voice now they are off the subject of education. He should scratch his chin or head to show he is uneasy about mentioning the above.
Whilst the joke about Frank and Elliot Ness is going on, on page 9, lines 18-26, there must be an awkward pause between when Frank says “Ah.” and Rita says, “You’ve still not got it have y’?…”. This helps to show how different they are, how Frank is more used to the company of intelligent people and how innocent he is in a way to social things and how he learns from Rita. Whilst the joke is carried out, Rita should look expectant after she has told the joke, waiting for a laugh and Frank must look bemused and puzzled. The same thing must happen on page 11 while Rita is talking about Flora the margarine and Frank believes she is talking about flowers:
R:“…’Y’ can tell he’s a Flora man.’.”
F:“A what?”
R:“A Flora man.”
F:“Flora? Flowers?”
In fact, Frank must appear totally innocent and uneducated in anything Rita has a firm knowledge about as a working class person, in the same way Rita is innocent to education. For example, on page 11 line 1 they are talking about Farrah Fawcett Majors and ITV, and Frank must be very interested and new to this. His mouth must drop a little, he must focus on Rita more and show he is concentrating.
Rita must listen at first on page 12, while Frank is talking about making a bargain:
“Listen, I’ll make a bargain with you…”
Then as he carries on and she starts to realise what he is getting at, her mouth must drop a little and she must look surprised and sceptical but keep quiet. Then she must open her mouth indignantly, check herself consciously and close it, when he says:
“I’m sorry-there are other tutors-I’ll arrange it for you.”
During this speech Frank must have his back to Rita but not to the audience, he should face the audience and Rita should be behind, also facing the audience. He must look composed, maybe have his eyes shut as if he has memorised this and been intending to say it for a while, but also look slightly guilty and regretful that he won’t have her. He should pause for a moment when he says:
“I’m actually an appalling teacher.”
This is so we can see he is admitting it and is waiting to see what Rita says. When she says nothing he should look round for a minute then turn back and face the audience.
Once Rita has turned and walked out, he must begin to pack up, go to his briefcase and start putting papers in, with his back to the door. He must be very startled when she bursts back in and open his mouth to say something, but Rita must beat him to it. While Rita is telling him she wants him she should look firm and insistent and ignore Frank’s comments and protests by turning to show she is not acknowledging what he says. Frank should look pleading and then resigned when he says:
“Do you think I could have a cigarette?”
In staging the play in this way I reflect Russell’s intentions. Russell wants the play to appeal to both middle and working class and show that a person can rise above their status, like he did. He also thinks you should aim to achieve whatever your dreams are regardless of your status. I reflected this by making the audience in support of Rita every step of the way. In making Rita get quite depressed and nearly fail at some points we see how strongly the audience wills her on.
He also wants to show a person can be different from the norm and break down barriers between the middle classes and working classes by destroying all prejudices. My staging illustrates this by showing how Rita and Frank can be very intimate and close despite their relationship being a purely platonic one. By managing to show how much mutual understanding and love there is between them I fulfil Russell’s intention.
Furthermore, he wishes to show the way of life for working class people. This is one of the most important intentions for him because he lived the life of a working class person for most of his childhood; he knows what it is like. I have to show the audience this, by really making the actress playing Rita emphasize what a life it is. She must portray it to the middle class audience as a bad life, which no one would want to live, whilst also associating with the working class in the audience by almost looking for agreement and not being too harsh on working class life. I am looking for the audience to view working class,life with compassion and understanding. I hope to have achieved this in my staging of ‘Educating Rita’
This is how I would stage a production of Educating Rita, using all the things I have mentioned above. This will enable me to produce a good play that reflects the intentions of Russell himself by following the script carefully and making the play come to life. By making use of scenery, stage layout, costume and lighting, I feel I bring educating Rita to life for the audience and let them see what Russell intended. Russell wanted the play to be comical and appeal to both middle class and working class people, with plenty of jokes and fine timing. By doing the above things, I feel I am reflecting what Russell intended for his play.
