The Power of the Single Set in Educating Rita Essay -- Educating Rita

The Power of the Single Set in Educating Rita There argon obvious financial and logistical reasons for making Educating Rita a two-handed escape, scarce Willy Russell does far more with this format than simply save money on actors and sets. The play is essentially about the impact of education on the lives of two people and it therefore does non need to distract the audience with Rita and Franks other relationships and concerns. The depth and color of Rita and Franks relationship is also highlighted by having them as the only characters on stage. It could be argued that the single room set does not give the audience enough of a sense of the social context of the two characters, but this is more than made up for by the incidents that they narrate about their lives outside Franks study. The single set represents Franks temper and position in the intellectual elite. From its description in the opening stage directions, it is a typical dons room lined with books, str ewn with papers and decorated with a good shanghai of a nude religious scene. But Franks first actions on stage undermine the high intellectual impression created by the room. He is searching his bookshelves not for a book, for but a bottle which he duly finds behind the highly respectable Dickens. When Rita eventually enters after her struggles with the door (symbolic perhaps of the obstacles placed on her road to enlightenment) she comments perceptively on the painting that, for all its value as art, is still just an excuse to look at a naked womans body. In Scene 2 Rita admires the rooms appearance in spite of the fact that it is a mess. Rita How dy make a room like this? Frank I didnt make... ...ople in a room talking is not a problem. The talk is what is important and Willy Russell marks Ritas progress even in this. Her early statements are full of colloquialisms, swearwords and references to popular culture, but as the play progresses the way Frank and Rita spe ak gradually comes closer together (apart from the Trisha-inspired false start of Rita talking, as Frank says, like a Dalek). Ultimately, Educating Rita is a amusing play which examines some serious themes such as social class and the transforming effect of education on working class people, who choose to take it up. The monotony of only ever seeing one set and two actors is more than made up for by the quality of Russells comic imagination and the importance of his themes in todays society. Work Cited Russell, Willy. Educating Rita Methuen Publishing, Ltd. 2001