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

The Power of the Single Set in Educating Rita thither are obvious financial and logistical reasons for making Educating Rita a two-faced play, but Willy Russell does far more with this format than simply save cash on actors and sets. The play is essentially about the impact of didactics on the lives of two people and it therefore does non need to distract the auditory modality with Rita and domestic dogs other relationships and concerns. The depth and intensity of Rita and Franks relationship is also highlighted by having them as the solitary(prenominal) characters on stage. It could be argued that the single room set does not give the audience enough of a sense of the social linguistic context of the two characters, but this is more than make up for by the incidents that they tell apart about their lives outside Franks study. The single set represents Franks personality and position in the intellectual elite. From its description in the opening stage direction s, it is a characteristic dons room lined with books, strewn with papers and decorated with a good print of a nude religious scene. But Franks first actions on stage soften 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 bed the highly respectable Dickens. When Rita eventually enters after her struggles with the door (symbolic perhaps of the obstacles fit(p) on her road to enlightenment) she comments perceptively on the painting that, for all its appraise as art, is still just an excuse to look at a naked womans body. In Scene 2 Rita admires the rooms appearance in outrage 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(a) statements are full of colloquialisms, swearwords and references to popular culture, but as the play progresses the counseling Frank and Rita speak gradually comes closer together (apart from the Trisha-inspired false stand out of Rita talking, as Frank says, like a Dalek). Ultimately, Educating Rita is a comic play which examines slightly 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