The overall language theme of the play is humorous – the writer Willy Russell makes the interaction and repartee between Frank and Rita witty and entertaining. Sometimes in parts of the play Frank and Rita so completely miss each other’s points they could be speaking different languages.
Attitudes
In Act 1 Scene 1 we find out a lot about both Rita and Frank’s attitudes. From the off – with the one-sided phone call we hear between Frank and Julia, we are introduced to a sarcastic yet witty man who obviously likes to spend rather a large amount of time in the pub. The symbolism used at the beginning when Rita is trying to get in but the door handle wont budge portrays Frank’s stubbornness and how set in his ways he has become. This is also repeated later on when Rita tries to open the window but that will not open either, the symbolism culminates when Frank describes Rita as:
“the first breath of fresh air that’s been in this room for years.”
For Frank, Rita is not only the first ‘breath of fresh air’ for the room but for him in his life too. He hates his job and the students he has to teach. He tells Rita that he sometimes gets the urge to through something through the window she so admires:
“a student usually”
This again shows Frank’s sarcastic nature but also of how trapped he feels in the job. Rita breathes life back into both him and his passion for the work that he does.
Rita comes from a working class background but her views are not the expected type. She says:
“I’m twenty-six. I should have had a baby by now; everyone expects it.”
“I wanted a better way of livin’ me life.”
Rita wants to change herself. She doesn’t want to do what is expected of her she wants to ‘discover’ herself. She says that ‘round her way’ they would think she was mental for wanting to change. Her husband, Denny, is dead set against her getting an education. He wants them to get a nicer house, settle down and start a family but Rita doesn’t want to. She loves him but she thinks that he’s ‘thick’ when it comes to the sort of thing she’s trying to learn. She goes to Frank and asks him to teach her ‘everything’.
In Act1 Scene 1 Rita talks about her work as a hairdresser. She says:
“they walk in the hairdressers and an hour later they wanna walk out a different person. I tell them I’m a hairdresser, not a plastic surgeon.”
“But these woman, you see, they come to the hairdressers cos they wanna be changed. But if you want to change y’ have to do it from the inside, don’t y’. Know like I’m doin’.”
This sums up Rita’s attitude perfectly. She sees through her work that you can’t just buy a new dress or have your hair done if you want to change. She sees through that superficial veil and realises that if she wants to change she’s going to have to do it from the inside,. This is where Frank comes in. Rita knows that if she gets an education in the things Frank can teach her she can try and make a better life for herself.
Educational Development
At the beginning of the play, Rita’s understanding of literature is especially minimal. When asked to ‘Suggest how you would resolve the staging difficulties inherent in a production of Ibsen’s Peer Gint’ she wrote simply:
“Do it on the radio.”
This is a prime example of how Rita sees things. Just do it the simple way. But as she progresses throughout the play she comes on in leaps and bounds. This is helped a great deal by her attendance of summer school, which occurs between Acts 1 and 2. In the very last scene of Act 1 we discover that Rita has also taken the momentous step to leave her husband Denny. This inspires her onward and upward with her education. At summer school she gains more confidence in herself as an ‘educated woman’. This extract shows that although she is fast becoming the sort of person she desires to be she is still Rita inside:
“ Y’ know at first I was dead scared. I didn’t know anyone. I was gonna come home. But the first afternoon I was standin’ in this library, y’ know lookin’ at the books, pretendin’ I was dead clever. Anyway, this tutor come up to me, he looked at the book in me hand an’ he said, ‘Ah, are you fond of Ferlinghetti?’ It was right on the tip of me tongue to say, ‘only when it’s served with parmesan cheese’, but, Frank, I didn’t. I held it back an’ I heard meself sayin’, ‘Actually I’m not too familiar with the American poets’. ”
She talks of her insecurities, the feeling that again, she didn’t belong but even though she thought a tongue in cheek reply, she had the choice this time to say something more tactful. This is due to her educational development. It is this choice that she speaks of when upon sitting her exam, she is faced with the question: ‘Suggest how you would resolve the staging difficulties inherent in a production of Ibsen’s Peer Gint’.
“But I had a choice. I chose, me. Because of what you’d given me I had a choice. I wanted to come back and tell you that. That y’ a good teacher.”
Social Development
At the beginning of the play, Rita is a twenty-six year old, working class hairdresser. She’s married and she lives in suburbia with her husband Denny and her family nearby. They all meet up in the pub and Rita is expected to stay in this environment and raise a family. She is also uneducated hence her work as a hairdresser. Rita however is unlike the rest of her clan and doesn’t aspire to settling down and relinquishing herself to stretch marks just yet. She wants to discover herself and sees taking an English Literature course at the Open University as an answer. And for her it is.
By the end of the play Rita has developed in the sort of person she aimed to become and has successfully integrated herself into that society. She had broken away from her husband and family and moved to a trendy part of London into a flat share with a woman of her own age. She’s stopped working as a hairdresser and stopped calling herself Rita. She says to Frank:
“Rita? Nobody calls me Rita but you. I dropped that pretentious crap as soon as I saw it for what it was.”
She has reverted back to her real name, Susan, which is far more fitting to the society in which she now exists.
In Act 2 Scene 5 when her and Frank are having a fight and Frank’s drinking has become alarming, Rita goes to him to tell him that she has read his poetry and thinks that its:
“More resonant than – purely contemporary poetry in that you can see in it the direct line through to nineteenth century traditions of – of wit an’ classical allusion.”
Frank argues back that his poetry is in fact:
“this clever, pyrotechnical pile of self-conscious allusion is worthless, talent less, shit and could be recognized as such by anyone with a shred of common sense.”
He goes on demoralizing work he no doubt was proud of once. When Rita argues against him he tells her to leave saying he ‘cant bear it anymore’. This really pisses her off and she calls him a ‘Self-Pitying Piss Artist’ and throws back at him that he can’t bear that’s she’s educated now. She says:
“I’ve got a room full of books. I know what clothes to wear, what wine to buy, what plays to see, what papers and books to read. I can do without you.”
Physical Changes
As the play gives no indication of any changes to the physical appearance of its two characters this must be taken from the video we watched in class starring Julie Walters and Michael Caine and Rita and Frank.
In the video Frank has longish curly brown hair and a thick beard and the sort of clothes a university lecturer is supposed to wear (suits etc). His appearance doesn’t change throughout the course of the video.
Rita’s appearance however does change. At the beginning she swans about wearing short skirts and high heels and has cropped hair with different colour streaks in. This gradually changes. She changes her clothes to suit her surroundings and she wears much more sensible clothes for the kind of life she now leads. She also grows her hair longer and no longer puts in bright garish streaks – she has a much more grown-up style.
Changes in Personal Lives
The start of the play shows Frank to be living with his partner Julia but to have been previously divorced. Him and Julia split up between Acts 1 and 2 leaving Frank on his own and even more depressed – hence the downward spiral he gets caught in as his drinking escalates. When his problem with alcohol comes to a head Frank gets sent to Australia for two years. The author, Willy Russell has created wonderful symbolism by using Australia as it is the bottom of the world from England – Frank’s downward spiral has finally hit rock bottom.
Rita starts out living with her husband Denny closely surrounded by her family. But by the end of the play she has gained her independence, left her husband and family behind and moved to Central London with her flatmate Trish. She is now single young and carefree. A far cry from the life she had before she went to Frank and asked him to teach her ‘everything’.
Educating the Author
Upon reading a short autobiography by the author Willy Russell entitled ‘Educating the Author’, I discovered that Russell based Rita heavily on himself.
He was born into a working class background, did not do well in school and described himself as a:
“Kid from the ‘D’ stream.”
He wanted to be a writer but he knew he wasn’t in the right place to do so. For years he worked as a hairdresser and tried to write his poems, songs and stories in between customers just like we come across Rita doing in the play. He felt that in order to succeed he had to break away from his family and background and really make a go of it just like we have Rita doing at the end of Act 1. He worked at a job that could easily have killed him until he earned just enough to cover the fees for him to go to Childwall College where he felt he could start again. Like Rita he was getting himself an education to fulfil his dreams and ambitions.
Conclusion
Overall this play is about changing your life to become the sort of person you desire to become. To rise above your up bringing, shy away from what is expected of you and fulfil your dreams. It is Willy Russell almost detailing his life and how he felt as he did what we see Rita doing in the play. Frank is however a character we must also account for. He starts off sarcastic witty and unhappy. He ends up at rock bottom with a horrendous drinking problem alone in the world and being sent to Australia for two years. He is the sort of person born to the ‘right’ background but who cannot ever appreciate its advantages the way Rita can.
I think audiences going to see this play will enjoy the witty and engaging repartee between Rita and Frank in the beginning and Rita’s success paying off toward the end.
I liked the way the play portrays the message of hope for people like Rita who feels consigned to their situation. It shows them that with hard work and determination they can lead the life they feel they could only hope for. Even though the play was written in the eighties I feel its relevance is still very fitting today.
