20th Century Drama - Educating Rita by Willy Russell.

... 20th Century Drama - Educating Rita by Willy Russell Educating Rita is a play by Willy Russell exploring the relationship between Open University tutor Frank and his lively, ambitious student Rita who wants to become an educated woman and "know everything". Frank and Rita's relationship inevitably changes throughout the play. Between the first and last scenes Rita changes considerably into someone Frank thinks he can hardly recognise. At the beginning of the play Rita is a twenty-six-year-old working class woman who lives on an estate in Liverpool. She conveys her social setting in her speech, being very direct and straightforward. "This was the pornography of it's day...do you think it's erotic?" (Act 1, scene 1) She is bubbly, chatty and flamboyant. Rita has higher expectations than the majority of her class and is angered when she believes that her class is not represented accurately. "An' like

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