- Educating Rita
"Educating Rita" is an award-winning stage comedy by British playwright
Willy Russell . It is a play for two actors set entirely in the office of a university lecturer.Commissioned by the
Royal Shakespeare Company , "Educating Rita" premièred at The Warehouse,London , in June 1980 starringJulie Walters and Mark Kingston. The play was directed byMike Ockrent .In 1983, Russell adapted the play for the screen.
Plot summary
The playfollows the relationship betweenSusan White, a young Liverpudlian working class hairdresser and Dr Frank Bryant, a middle-aged University lecturer, during the course of a University semester.
Susan (who initially calls herself Rita), dissatisfied with the routine of her work and social life, seeks inner growth by signing up for and attending an
Open University course in English. The play opens as Rita meets her tutor, Frank for the first time. Dr Frank Bryant is a middle-aged, alcoholic career academic who has taken on the tutoriship to pay for his drink. The two have an immediate and profound effect on one another; Frank is impressed by Susan's verve and earnestness and is forced to re-examine his attitudes and position in life, Susan finds Frank's tuition opens doors to a bohemian lifestyle and a new self-confidence. However, Frank's bitterness and cynicism returns as he notices Susan beginning to adopt the pretentions of the University culture he despises. Susan becomes disillusioned by a friend's attempted suicide and realizes that her new social niche is rife with the same dishonesty and superficiality she had previously sought to escape. The play ends as Frank, reassigned to an Australian University, welcomes the possibilities of the change.Themes
The play deals with England's class system, the shortcomings of institutional education, and the nature of self development. The play borrows from the classic myth Pygmalion.
ee also
* the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea
* G. B. Shaw's "Pygmalion" (1913)
* "My Fair Lady "External links
* [http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/EduRita.htm Film Review: Educating Rita]
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