‘Educating Rita’ By Willy Russell - The way in which Russell maintains the audiences interest at the same time as presenting important ideas about education.
'Educating Rita' By Willy Russell
The way in which Russell maintains the audiences
interest at the same time as
presenting important
ideas about
education.
The play 'Educating Rita' is a story about a young woman's determination to change her life. She is a dissatisfied hairdresser who wants an education to get beyond the culture she was born into. She commits herself to an Open University course where she meets Frank. Her tutor. He is not the best tutor to meet her needs but Rita is shrewd enough to recognise that he belongs to a different culture and offers her access to an intellectual and social confidence. Rita and Frank 'hit it off' from the outset - a fatal attraction of opposites, but, they have more in common than is first realised. Frank, like Rita is also dissatisfied and sees his existence as hollow and sham, made more bearable by a constant flow of scotch. Rita helps Frank escape from a life, which he is not too fond of, with her funny, charming and delightful character, just, as Frank lets her escape from hers.
Educating Rita was written in the early 1980's. At this time, in Britain, there was a great deal of unemployment. This unemployment was due to the major companies, such as steel and coal, changing hands from private state companies to national companies. This was done to re-structure the economy. Nationalised industries were labour intensive and new skills were required to work the new technology, brought in from abroad. Many of the workers from the private companies didn't have these required skills. Their jobs in the private companies were the only jobs they had ever had, and most of the workers had gone into these jobs straight from school, with no further education.
Education was put under the microscope and the government set out to change people's perceptions of education. Many people believed in the functional view of education - that it was mearly there to get them jobs. They were only interested in the outcomes. What the government wanted was to make people see education as intrinsic. They wanted people to be able to think for themselves, determine their own lives and future - all part of personal development. The purpose of education became a national priority. 'Educating Rita' questions the functional view.
Rita's social group believe in the functional view of education. She is in a relationship with a man who believes in getting a job, marrying and then having a baby. Rita doesn't want her life to be mapped out this and goes to Frank to get an education, allowing her to have choice in her life.
Not only does Rita have to improve her educational skills, she has to develop personally as well. Rita confuses this development, in her wish to be like the higher classes. She becomes a mouthpiece for others ideas. She thinks to be like her idols she will have to think like them. She thinks by becoming just as they are, she will impress Frank. Frank soon lets her know this is not how he wants her to be:
'As Trish says there is not a lot of point in discussing beautiful literature in an ugly voice'
'Well ...
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Not only does Rita have to improve her educational skills, she has to develop personally as well. Rita confuses this development, in her wish to be like the higher classes. She becomes a mouthpiece for others ideas. She thinks to be like her idols she will have to think like them. She thinks by becoming just as they are, she will impress Frank. Frank soon lets her know this is not how he wants her to be:
'As Trish says there is not a lot of point in discussing beautiful literature in an ugly voice'
'Well will you kindly tell Trish that I am not giving a tutorial to a Dalek?'
Frank is upset at Rita's shallowness, because the last thing he wanted, was for her to turn into a 'Dalek', as he feels lots of his other pupils have.
Rita also confuses the reasons for being able to choose. She thinks that getting an education will allow her know what dress to wear and what bottle of wine to purchase. Frank is troubles by this and asks her:
'Is that all you wanted? Have you come all this way for so very, very little?'
Frank feels close to Rita and feels a lot of hope in her succeeding in her ambitions. Her just having learnt how to choose these insignificant things disappoints Frank.
By the end of the play Rita finally realises what it is she really wants and comes to be able to say:
'I'll choose.'
This is what Frank wanted from her and is delighted.
Russell uses Rita's humour to get the audiences interest. Although Rita is intelligent, she is not knowledgeable about literature and a lot of her humour shown in the play comes down to this. For example, when Frank mentions the poet Yeats, she thinks he means Yates, the owner of a chain of wine shop. She has a strong view on the novel 'Howard's end' and refused to read it due to the criticism of the poor, Forster put in. This is how she reacted:
'When he wrote that book the conditions of the poor in this country were appalling. An' he's sayin' he couldn't care less. Mr E.M.Bleedin' Foster'
'Forster'
'I don't care what his name was, he was sittin' up therein his ivory tower an'sayin' he couldn't care less.'
Frank laughs at this, Rita not yet understanding why. Another thing Rita is unused to is the way in which the so-called academic elite speaks. When Frank says:
'Have you ever seen Chekhov in the theatre?'
(meaning the play by Anton Chekhov), she replies:
'No. Does he go?'
Her lack of understanding of the academic world is also shown in the way she writes essays. She answers a question on 'Peer Gynt' briefly and directly:
'Do it on the Radio'
Not understanding that the convention of essay writing is that the issue is to be explored in depth. To compensate for this, her views are often imaginative and original. This is what Frank admires about her.
Rita finds her working life deeply unsatisfying and, as she looks around, she notes a deep sense of meaninglessness in the lives of all those around her. She exaggerates somewhat but nevertheless makes a forceful point about her community:
'By us, there is no meanin' to life... I just see everyone pissed or on the Valium, trying to get from one day to the next.'
Part of Rita's desire is to break free from this life and live on which is how she wants it.
As a woman of this community, Rita's destiny is already mapped out for her. By the age of 26, it is expected, by her husband and the local community, that Rita will have children. In this community that Rita has been brought up in, it is hard to rebel. Rita can't tell her husband that she doesn't want children and so feels forced to hide her contraceptive pills.
In Rita's community she is stereotyped and this started from when she was in school when she followed the ways of the other children:
'See, if I'd started takin' school seriously I would have had to become different from me mates, an that's not allowed.'
'By whom?'
'By your mates, by your family, by everyone......'
It is only now, she's older she has the courage to break free from this stereotype and get an education.
There is a lot of humour in Rita's language. Frank is initially quite bewildered by the language she uses, but manages to respond with his dry wit adding to the joke:
'God, I've had enough of this. It's boring', that's what it is bloody borin'. This Forster, honest to God he doesn't half get on my tits.'
'Good. You must show me the evidence.'
'Y' dirty sod'
'True, true.... Its cutting down on the booze that's done it....'
As Rita makes more such like comments, humouring Frank more, she is able to create word pictures from the language she uses. This gives her the tool to gain an easy escape from difficult situations. If there is an awkward situation between the two, Rita usually comes up with some little phrase or remark which makes things much more relaxed between the two. If Rita didn't possess the ability to do this, frank and Rita's relationship could be very different.
There are many differences between Frank and Rita but despite all these differences, they are very positive about each other from the start. Frank is entranced by Rita's vitality and she is determined not to have any other tutor but Frank. Initially, Frank feels she would be better off with another tutor because he doesn't have the skill to stimulate her imagination and provide her with knowledge, but she is adamant she wants it.
They suit each other with their witty humour. Rita gives out some potentially shocking comments, but Frank gives a dry response. When this tension is brought on by the two characters it is inevitable but short lived. Despite the verbal batterings, they both still have the capacity to show warmth and affection.
There is a struggle for power between the two, which is apparent in most relationships. At the beginning Frank is the one with all the power and control. He is male, the teacher and the authority figure. However, even against the odds it ends up with Rita in control. Both Frank and Rita learn from each other throughout the play. When Rita says:
'All I've ever done is take from you. I've never given anything'
She says this wrongly because Frank enjoys tutoring Rita, and she helps him without really realising it.
In the Play, Frank is very low and depressed. We can see this by examining his humour and seeing that in nearly every scene he is drinking.
There are many reasons why Frank turns to the bottle to escape. In his own eyes he is a failed poet and an uninspired teacher, mearly going through the motions. In his attempts at tutoring Rita, he shows no professional integrity when he gives a lecture in a drunken state.
His personal relationship seems unsuccessful and he doesn't appear to care whether he and Julia remain together. He has become cynical about the work he does, apathetic and bored. Frank is filled with self-disgust because he knows he has failed to use his talents constructively. When Rita asks Frank about Julia, he replies:
'I like her enormously; it's myself I'm not too fond of''
Frank is generally self-deprecating about his talents as a poet and teacher. In some people such comments would seem like false modesty but Frank has genuinely lost most of his self-esteem. A lot of his humour is an attempt to hide from reality or joke about things which are painful. Rita, as perceptive as she often is about Frank, tells him:
'Y' don't tell the truth, do y'? Y' don't; y' like evade it with jokes an that, don't y''
She understands Frank, and Frank understands her. This is another reason why they are so fond of each other.
Educating Rita shows how a comedy can also raise serious issues about education and the working class of this time. One of the greatest attractions however, is the relationship between Frank and Rita. Rita's vitality and sometimes shocking humour, mixed with Franks dry wit. Despite all their differences, with different culture backgrounds etc. they still seem like a perfect match.
From the very first scene there is flirtation between the two, and this carries on through each and every scene. Not only is their flirtation, there is also a sense that they care for each other deeply yet are not ready to admit it to one another. Russell uses this match of opposites to pull through the play and right up to the last scene we are left wondering what will happen with them both. Will Rita go to Australia with Frank and start a sexual relationship with him? It is what we all want, but Russell does not want us to know. He leaves it up to us to decide what will happen.
In the play there are only two characters and only one set used. This pulls our attention directly on the relationship between Frank and Rita and the issues raised by them. There are other characters mentioned, such as Rita's husband Denny, but these characters never comes directly into the novel. This excellent stagecraft is used by Russell to give a dramatic effect by focusing our minds purely on the actions of Frank and Rita, and it does.
Lucy Turner 10a
English Coursework
