The Humour in Educating Rita Essay -- Educating Rita Willy Russell Ess

The Humour in Educating RitaEducating Rita is a wry romance that was written by Willy Russellin 1979, based on his own life. It is enclothe in Liverpool and depicts theperseverance of a working class, 26-year-old hairdresser with noqualifications called Susan, or as she is called throughout the play,Rita, as she tries to discover herself by participating in anEnglish literature course at the Open University. Her lecturer, who isfrom a more than middle class background, Frank, is somewhat of anunorthodox one he is much found to be drunk and, during onelecture, he is so drunk that he falls off of the rostrum in the hallThis unusual behaviour leads to him being sent to Australia for devilyears. In this essay, I am going to discuss how I might direct thisplay so that I achieve humour for the audience.There are four briny aspects that create the humour in the playEducating Rita the first of which is the buffoonery of the denotation.This is when a character in the play is perceiv ed as being jesting bythe way that the character speaks or a trait that the character has.When Rita enters Franks classroom in the first scene, she blurts outIm coming in, arent I? Its that stupid bleedin grip on thedoor. You wanna get it designateedAs director, I would have the actress performing Rita fall through thedoor and point towards Frank, as if to order him to fix the door. Theactor playing Frank would have to put on a stern face, looking indisbelief at Rita in surprise at the way she entered.Considering the fact that this is an interview situation, the audiencewould be shocked, as the language is totally out of the blue andinappropriate for such a formal situation. Also the fact that she... ...e rostrum- an action thatoccurs because of his drunkenness. Along with Franks drinking, Ritasentrance to the play is an example of extremely effective comedy ofcharacter. However, as the play progresses and Rita becomes moreaware and cognisant of her actions the comedy seems to generalise fromFranks drunkenness. There is much to be said as to how you would direct this play.Personally I would involve more than just the dickens characters Frank andRita. This would give me as director, the chance to introduce morehumorous situations. Other occurrences that would possibly make theplay more interesting could be added to the play with the introductionof extra characters. Willy Russell wrote this play to be performed,but I must wonder why he wrote the play with only two characters if hedid eventually see the play being performed on the fluid screen.