The Role Of Social-Class In Willy Russell's Educating Rita
1459 Words6 Pages
Educating Rita is a comedy stage production by the author Willy Russell back in 1980. The play focusses on two characters, Rita and Frank. Rita is a working-class hairdresser and Frank is a middle-class university tutor in Liverpool. The play also includes minor characters such as Denny - Rita’s Husband, and Julia - Frank’s wife.
Russell has written similar works to Educating Rita such as Blood Brothers, Shirley Valentine, Our Day Out and The Wrong Boy. Russell had been commissioned to write a seventy minute script for a young people’s theatre company in Merseyside straight after the success of Educating Rita, this has formed the start of Blood Brothers.
Mrs. Johnstone from the play Blood Brothers is similar to Rita in many ways, this can be seen by the social-classes encountered in the play. Both characters find companionship with citizens of the upper-class. In the play Blood Brothers, “cold-hearted Mrs. Lyons, who has her husband wrapped around her…show more content… The first conversation between Rita and Frank is mismatched due to the lack of understanding. Frank begins asking Rita for her name with the question “You are?” (Russell, 1981, pg. 14) to which she replies with “What am I?) (Russell, 1981, pg. 15) this encourages the read to find humour within the future formed bond of the characters. The sense of speech soon switches with Rita sounding like Frank, the language and tone of “(Talking in a peculiar voice) Hello, Frank” (Russell, 1981, pg. 83) shows this. Frank also begins to sound more like Rita by saying phrases such as “Dead honest” (Russell, 1981, pg. 85). Rita soon communicates in her own manner by the end of the novel, this releases the reader’s thoughts in how she has her own choice in life regardless of others. She has reverted to her old self by cutting Franks hair, this is also a foreseen event from the start of the