"Educating Rita" Notes by Adri

Act 2, Scenes 6 and 7

2008-12-16T17:10:00.014-02:00

It's erm- well, it's er- it's a dress really.
I bought it some timr ago- for erm- for
an educted woman friend-of mine...

During the play Rita has learnt, apart from all the academic knowledge that she has acquired, that she can make choices and change her life. She doesn't have to accept things as they come, she can choose what to be. She knows now that she has the power to change her life, and perhaps she will make mistakes but she knows that she will do what she feels. She realizes how much Frank has helped her become autonomous and not depend on others. That's why she returns to her office to thank him. At the same time Frank has also learnt from Rita and from her young and fresh spirit. I think this is why he didn't wanted her to change so much, he wanted her to keep that joyful spirit that he had lost a long time ago. Frank will probably recover from his adiction, and following Rita's steps, he will change his life too. I think that this is why "Educating Frank" might have been an alternative tittle for this play. Teachers also learn from their students, and Frank has learnt from Rita an important lesson too.

" I never thought there was anythin' I could
give you. But there is. Come here, Frank..."

Act 2, Scenes 4 and 5

2008-12-16T15:52:00.004-02:00

On these two chapters Franks learns that Rita has quitted her job at the hairdresser's and that now people call her Susan again. Apparently, the only person who was not aware of this was Frank, when there was a time when Rita used to tell him everything. This situation makes him feel that she doesn't want to attend his tutorials anymore, which is true. They have become different people from what they were at the beginning of the play, and also different from each other. Frank's drinking problem is evident, his students have reported him, and his wife left him. On the other hand, Rita is turning into the kind of person that she had always wanted to be. "I've got a room full of book. I know what clothes to wear, what wine to buy, what plays to see, what papers and books to read. I can do wihout you." However, Franks doesn't want her to be like him and his other students, he wants her to be the Rita he met for the first time.
I have more sympathy for Rita because she has to do what makes her happy. Sha has made difficult desicions such as leaving her husband and her house to continue studing. She may make mistakes in the future, but that can't stop her from trying to achieve her dreams.

2008-12-14T18:28:00.005-02:00

These two new chapters show us Rita's development. She has become more confident and she is now able to discuss a book with the rest of the literature students at the university. She has finally become able to understand what she reads, and to write essays without depending on Frank's opinion and assistance. She has learnt to consult different sources and opinions, and to be objective. All this makes her a better student and a wiser person on the literature field. However, this does not mean that you need to receive formal education to be wise. Experience makes you wiser, and even an iliterate person can be as wise as a teacher or a professor, and in this case, I think that Rita is wiser at what she does. This is because she has put a lot of effort and dedicated time to her studies, and this has led her to improve her essays and her knowledge on literature.

Act 2, Scene 1

2008-11-18T21:51:00.004-02:00

"D' y' know somethin', Frank? I'm havin' the time of my life"

Rita has experienced significant changes since she last visited Frank's office. She's been to summer school in London and had a great time there. She wrote lots of essays, visited theatres, read poetry, attended lectures and discussed literature topics with other students and tutors. Now she feels renewed and as joung as the rest of Frank's students. She's made excellent progress, but Frank doesn't seem enthusiastic about Rita's changing so much from how she used to be when she first stepped into his office. Perhaps this is because he doesn't want her to lose the freshness that she had, and to turn into somebody similar to him, immersed in the world of literature and high education, but a depressed man and frustrated poet too. She wants her to be herself.

Act 1, Scenes 7 and 8

2008-11-18T10:27:00.010-02:00

Rita comes back to Frank's office for her weekly tutorial. As she didn't show up to Frank's house for lunch as she had promissed, he is a bit upset with her. However, Frank soon finds out that she had a fight with her hueband and went to his house anyway, but she didn't came in. I think that the reason why Rita behaved in that way is that she thinks she doesn't fit in with Frank and the rest of the people in the house and, at the same time, she doesn't belong to her husband's or her family's way of living anymore either. She thought that Frank and the others were going to make fun of her because she is not at "their level" yet, and she has trouble with her husband because she is different fron him too. So she's in a turning point where she will have to make decisions and choose which way she will live for the rest of her life.
Rita feels that she doesn't know what kind of clothes she should wear, what sort of wine she should buy and how to behave. The only thing she knows is that she is doing it all wrong and that she wants to change, but she still doesn't know how.

Act 1 Scene 6

2008-10-07T01:35:00.006-03:00

Rita's been to see a play by Shakespeare for the first time and comes quickly to Frank's office to tell him about it. She found it absolutely interesting and wants to share it with someone that she knows can understand what she feels.
Rita uses words to express her enthusiasm for Macbeth such as "...it was bleeding' great, honest, ogh, it done me in, it was fantastic" or "What I couldn't get over is how excitin' it was", "An that fantastic bit where he meets Macduff an' he thinks he's all invincible. I was at the edge of my seat at that bit. I wanted to shout out an' tell Macbeth, warn him.", "It was dead good. It was like a thriller."
She wouldn't be allowed to use these kind of expresions when writing an essay, but perhaps she'll be able to put in into more appropiate words and write an interesting essay on the play.

Act 1 Scene 5

2008-09-13T16:38:00.012-03:00

Rita arrives to Frank's office but this time she hasn't brought her essay. Rita tells him that her husband burnt some of the books he had lent her and also her papers after a fight they had. In spite of that, Rita won't drop out. Although her husband wants her to be the girl she was when they got married, she has changed and is starting to find herself . Rita knew that the decision she has taken wasn't an easy one, and that it was easier to keep her life as it was before because that way she wouldn't upset anyone arround her. But she's a different person now, and I think that nothing will let her down. That's why she decides to stay at Frank's office discussing Chekhov instead of accepting her teacher's suggestion that they should give the class a miss and go to the pub to have a drink and talk about what had happened.

Act 1 Scenes 3 and 4

2008-09-13T10:44:00.007-03:00

Rita has started to read many book and write essays. However, she is not reading the kind of books that would help her pass the examination and she still hasn't improved her essays. One of the reasons why Rita's essays are wrong is that she has been writing them when she had some free time at the shop, and they are too short. Frank learns that Rita's husband doesn't like her taking the course and writing essays at home. In spite of not having her family's support, Rita feels that taking the course makes her stronger.

I believe that Rita is starting to realise how education is already changing her life. She tells Frank that she sees no culture around her. She feels that the life of "people like her" has no meaning because they have no goals in life but to earn some money to survive and buy stuff. But Rita doesn't want that to be truth for her, she has refused to buy a new dress till she passes her first exam because she wants a real change, not the one that her costumers look for when they go to the shop to have their hair done. She wants the kind of change that comes from the inside and she needs to overcome that kind of inertia that sorrounds the working class. She has decided to go against the flow and try something different from the rest of them, even if they don't like it. That's why studying makes her stronger, because it is the means by which she will get to achieve what she wants.

Act 1 Scene 2

2008-08-31T01:25:00.008-03:00

One week after meeting her teacher, Rita comes back to Frank's office for her tutorial. She has prepared a paper on the book Rubyfruit Jungle, but it is not what Frank expected. I think that the fact that Frank explaines to her why it isn't correct and what she should do in order to improve it, and then he listens to Rita's point of view about other book he mentions shows us that he wants to understand her and help her graduate, eventhough he doesn't want to be her teacher. Eventhough Rita has a different background as a working-class woman, and knows nothing about the world of literature, Frank listens to her and doesn't understimates her. That's part of being a good teacher, to enable the student to be critical and to express his or her opinion. Rita is very perseptive and also talkative. She wants to test her teacher and observes the room meticuluosly, trying to learn more about him. But Frank brings her back to the topic of discussion and reminds her that learning means a lot of work.

Act 1 Scene 1

2008-08-18T12:32:00.004-03:00

I've just finished reading the firs scene of this book and it makes for interesting reading. One of the main characters is Susan, who has decided to change her name to Rita. She is a twenty-six-year-old middle class woman that works as a hairdresser. She has decided to take a literature course at the Open University. She sais she wants to discover herself before starting a family and that she wants a better way of living her life, but her husband cannot and does not want to understand this. She wants to study because she wants to know a bit more about everything in order to distinguish herself from the people that surround her. She has a lively and enquiring mind and she wants to be academic, expand her knowledge of the world and see things from the point of view of a more educated person. I think that she wants to know if she can get further than being a hairdresser or a housekeeper for the rest of her life, and she is determined to do it!
Education should always be encouraged, no matter how old you are you can always learn something. Fortunately, Rita is an adult and has the will to learn more, but sometimes children need to be helped to understand that it is necessary to receive at least primary and secondary education. It is true that many times people who have studied and became professionals are not well-paid and this may be one discouraging factor as children may think that it is not worth studying so many years, but it is also true that this should not keep us from continuing trying to reach what we want to be.

2008-07-31T14:10:00.000-03:00

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 starring Julie Walters and Mark Kingston. The play was directed by Mike Ockrent.

In 1983, Russell adapted the play for the screen.