Another advantage of “Educating Rita” being a two-handed play is that having only one set means the set becomes very significant as the play progresses. For example, at the start of the text, in Act One, scene one, the set reflects Rita’s aspirations of being an intellectual, when she studies the picture of a nude religious picture that Frank has on one of his walls, she says “That’s a nice picture isn’t it?” and then she studies the picture. This shows Rita is making herself aware of the room that she is going to spend a lot of time in and it also shows that most of Rita’s aspirations will be fulfilled within Frank’s study room. The set is also Frank’s symbolic prison as he uses the study room as a way out from his life, this is shown in Act One, scene one when he takes a whisky bottle from the book shelves. This shows that for both Frank and Rita the set is very significant to them, for two different reasons. Also another benefit of a two-handed play is that the study room that “Educating Rita” is set in provides a contrast to the other environments that are mentioned by Rita, for example the hairdressers that Rita works in, Rita’s local pub and also her and Denny’s home. The contrast shows what different environments Rita is involved with and the huge difference between the environments.
Another advantage of having one set in “Educating Rita” is that the study room in the university emphasises that the play’s focus is on Rita’s transformation from an unintelligent girl to an intellectual woman. As the play progresses you can slowly see the transformation she is undertaking, from the way her dialogue changes, to the way she presents herself in her clothing and also to the way she can argue about English Literature with Frank. This is shown when in Act Two scene two. We can see the change in her character, when Rita says “I got up early today. I started talking to some students down on the lawn”. This is a big difference from the last time she tried to speak to students because she was quite wary of them before. The single set highlights this and shows how much Frank and the university have transformed her and it also shows a contrast from the first time Rita entered Frank’s study room and how she didn’t know anything about English Literature.
The pace of the play is another advantage of “Educating Rita” being a two-handed play because, as there is only one set in the whole play, the pace of the play is maintained because there are no slow set changes to slow down the speed, which does keep the audience more focused on the play. The only way that other locations apart from Frank’s study room in the university are created is by Rita’s dialogue when talking to Frank. Another advantage of “Educating Rita” being a two-handed play is that it gives the writer much more control over the tone of the events narrated by Rita. For example, her account of Denny burning her books is bad enough, but seeing the scene could have been too brutal for a comedy. So, the writer can keep the play as comedic as possible as there is only one set, if the play wasn’t a two-handed play, the writer would have had to put that scene in the play but the only way the audience hear about Denny burning Rita’s books is when Rita in Act One, scene five says to Frank “It’s burnt, all your Chekhov books. Denny found out I was on the pill again, He burnt all my books”, therefore, not fully exploiting the brutal scene and still keeping the comedic touch to the play.
In spite of all the advantages, there are also many losses of having only two characters and only one setting in a play. For example, in “Educating Rita” the comic moments are not as fully exploited as the film version of the play, as the play only has one setting. The scene which I thought was the funniest scene in the film wasn’t shown in the play, therefore, as the play is a comedy it being a two-handed play doesn’t benefit “Educating Rita” because comic moments narrated by Rita in the play weren’t the same as it was seeing it in the film version. The audience only find out about Frank’s drunken lecture when in Act Two scene three, Frank and Rita talk about what happened, when Rita says “Were you pissed” and Frank replies by saying “Pissed? I was glorious! Fell off the rostrum twice”. This didn’t have any comic element to it as the film version did. Another disadvantage of “Educating Rita” being a two-handed play is that Rita and Frank’s presentation of other events and characters are subjective and therefore we question the truth of their accounts. For example, in Act One, scene five when Frank says “Where’s your essay” and Rita replies by saying “It’s burnt, so are all the Chekhov books you lent me. Denny found out I was on the pill, so he burnt all my books”. The audience don’t actually see Denny burning Rita’s books and essay so how do we know that Rita isn’t just making it up that Denny burnt her essay, she could be lying because she didn’t really do her essay. So the audience don’t really know the whole story and do start to question the truth of Frank and Rita’s accounts. Another disadvantage of “Educating Rita” being a two-handed play is that the single set doesn’t give the audience enough of a sense of the social context of the two characters. For example, in Act Two scene one, when Rita says “London and summer school was fantastic. A crowd of us stuck together all week. We had a great time, dead late every night, we went all round London, got drunk and went to the theatres”. As an audience, we only hear about this when Rita tells Frank about London, if this wasn’t a two-handed play we would have seen why Rita thought London and summer school was so fantastic, therefore, the audience don’t get to see Rita in her social life and how Rita is adapting to her more intellectual side outside the university.
Limited awareness of the passing of time is another disadvantage of “Educating Rita” being a two-handed play. We only see time passing through physical changes in the characters and the dialogue from Frank and Rita. For example in Act two Scene one Frank says “Trish?” and then Rita replies “Trish, my flatmate, Trish. God is it that long since I’ve seen you, Frank. She moved into the flat with me just before I went to summer school”. As an audience, we would never have known that summer was over and that autumn had begun in the play, if Rita hadn’t said, “She moved in with me just before I went to summer school”. The audience would have never known what season it was in the play.
There are also theatrical disadvantages for “Educating Rita” being a two-handed play, for example there is a lack of time for costume changes, no rest periods for the actors and also the audience would get bored of just always seeing a single set. Also the actor’s tiredness because of no rest periods could become a factor of poor acting and therefore not putting on a good performance for the audience.
In conclusion, I have analysed many advantages and many disadvantages of “Educating Rita” being a two-handed play. The main gain I think is that without minor characters, Frank and Rita’s relationship is focused on more by the audience and they can see more clearly how their relationship progresses from the start of the play right to the very end. Also, the writer has a big advantage because scenes in the film which could have been too brutal for a comedy can easily not be shown in the two-handed play, so the writer can keep the touch of comedy to the play without making the play too brutal. There are also very significant disadvantages to “Educating Rita” being a two-handed play, for example comedic moments aren’t fully exploited and the audience only hears about a comic moment when Rita and Frank talk about it. In my opinion, the film was more effective to me because I don’t think the play highlighted the social background of Frank and Rita, it was very hard to really understand Denny and Rita’s growing problems and to an extent Frank and Julia’s personal problems. The film also had the scene of Frank delivering a lecture whilst drunk, which I think the play didn’t really exploit and wasn’t actually funny when it was told in the play. Also, seeing Rita and Frank outside the university with their personal lives wasn’t really developed in the play, for example when Rita was going to have dinner with Frank and Julia, in the play it didn’t really explain in detail why Rita didn’t want to go in and have dinner, but in the film it was easily understandable why Rita didn’t want to go in. So, in conclusion I found the film version of “Educating Rita” much more effective than the play version because the film was much easier to understand than the play because I was very confused of what actually was happening in the play.