Educating Rita
Educating Rita by Willy Russell is an English comedy in two acts, which is based in Liverpool in the 1970s. The piece was first performed on 10 June 1980 at the Royal Shakespeare Company Warehouse in London and is based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.
- 5.1 expenditure
- 5.2 Further Reading
Action
Act I
Susan White, a married hairdresser at the age of 26 years, decides, despite their incomplete education, to strive for a final exam. To this end, they took courses at the Open University, where she meets the disillusioned and constantly drinking literature teacher Frank Bryant. Owing to its open and self-confident nature wins Susan, who calls himself in the presence of Frank Rita, his quick sympathy, and it is a relationship developed on a personal level.
In conversations with Frank Rita criticized the monotony and emptiness of meaning in the lives of people from the working class, who himself belongs. Her husband's desire to have children they do not share. Instead, they want to expand their horizons through education and eventually find themselves.
In the course of their training Rita begins to get excited about for plays and poetry, and distances itself further and further from their friends and relatives. Her husband eventually leaves because she refuses to give in to his desire to have children and they want to continue to attend courses at the Open University. Rita describes himself as an outsider or " half-breed", because in their old environment, although no longer feels comfortable, but also not heard because of their lack of general knowledge and their workers " slang " to the " upper class ".
Second Act
With increasing education Rita gaining self-confidence. She befriends with students and take part in their discussions about literature. Frank has the feeling of being neglected by the intellectually now evenly matched Rita. He thinks Rita gave up their honest and direct way in the course of training. He sees them now on a par with the hated him students who study literature analytically and unemotionally.
After being dumped by his girlfriend, Frank's alcohol problem increases. After a dispute over Frank's self-written works fracture occurs between Frank and Rita. After the dispute Frank has a bad conscience, drunk he calls Rita at work. She comes back once again to Frank to tell him that he was a good teacher. She has passed her final exam in the course of the second act with flying colors and looks now at the end of the piece in the position to decide about their lives. However, it is clear that Rita looks at education as a condition in which there is no qualitative gradation, but that any " educated " has the same quality education. Due to this, she sees herself on a par with Frank. Whether the two have a common future remains open.
Filming
Educating Rita was filmed in 1983. The screenplay was written by Willy Russell himself, directed by Lewis Gilbert. The two main actors Julie Walters and Michael Caine in 1984 was awarded the Golden Globe Award for her performance.
German stage version
Still in its premiere the piece under the title Education for Rita Angela Kingsford Röhl was translated into German. The German -language premiere was held at the State Theatre of Lower Saxony North in July 1981. The performance rights are held Litag Theaterverlag.
Swell
- Bernhard Reitz, Epilogue, in: Educating Rita, Stuttgart 1997, p.119 -131, ISBN 3-15-009040-7