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Rating: 
Summary: Ouch! I resemble that remark!
Review: I'm exactly Willy Russell's age. I wonder how much of Willy he's invested in Frank, the male half of this 2 character play. There's more of me in him than I am comfortable exploring. That's unfortunate because I've been assigned the first scene of Educating Rita as an acting class exercise. It's quite a good play, really; better than 3 stars perhaps but not quite worthy of 4. It's a polemic from 1980 in which Russell unburdened himself of some of his views about the working class; that alone seems a little quaint from this side of the Pond and the Millenial divide. The fact is that Rita is a wonderful character, a true heroine. She is a classic Shavian philistine on her way to becoming a realist which as any student of Shaw knows is the highest form to which humans may aspire. I wish I was meant to play Rita. Unfortunately, Frank feels more like a foil than a character, at least after 2 readings of the play. Ben Kingsley said, after Nasty Beast, that you have to find something in even the most despicable character which you love in order to play him. Good luck. Frank is pathetic. He lives behind walls designed to protect him from having to live. The walls of academia, for one, the walls of the pub, for another. Finally there are the walls of books in his University office behind which he hides his whiskey bottles. So fifty-something Frank meets twenty-six year-old Rita. Although he is a catalyst in her great awakening, he fails to have one of his own. Unlike Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation, he lacks the insight and the decency to understand that this relationship, regardless of how much it does for him, simply cannot be. As a result the play seems to end on a very hollow, sour note. Or am I missing something?
Rating:
Summary: Ouch! I resemble that remark!
Review: I'm exactly Willy Russell's age. I wonder how much of Willy he's invested in Frank, the male half of this 2 character play. There's more of me in him than I am comfortable exploring. That's unfortunate because I've been assigned the first scene of Educating Rita as an acting class exercise. It's quite a good play, really; better than 3 stars perhaps but not quite worthy of 4. It's a polemic from 1980 in which Russell unburdened himself of some of his views about the working class; that alone seems a little quaint from this side of the Pond and the Millenial divide. The fact is that Rita is a wonderful character, a true heroine. She is a classic Shavian philistine on her way to becoming a realist which as any student of Shaw knows is the highest form to which humans may aspire. I wish I was meant to play Rita. Unfortunately, Frank feels more like a foil than a character, at least after 2 readings of the play. Ben Kingsley said, after Nasty Beast, that you have to find something in even the most despicable character which you love in order to play him. Good luck. Frank is pathetic. He lives behind walls designed to protect him from having to live. The walls of academia, for one, the walls of the pub, for another. Finally there are the walls of books in his University office behind which he hides his whiskey bottles. So fifty-something Frank meets twenty-six year-old Rita. Although he is a catalyst in her great awakening, he fails to have one of his own. Unlike Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation, he lacks the insight and the decency to understand that this relationship, regardless of how much it does for him, simply cannot be. As a result the play seems to end on a very hollow, sour note. Or am I missing something?
Rating:
Summary: Who is educating whom?
Review: The play "Educating Rita" is quite a good one. It's interesting to follow Rita's change and her new experiences educated by Frank. At the beginning Rita doubt herself and is absolutely not satisfied with her life. Till she meets Frank.She becomes more and more independent and self-confident. And so she finally leaves her husband and starts her life new. At the end she also leaves Frank because she doesn't need him any longer. Frank is lonely now; he has lost a good friend and his job too, because of his alcool- problem. She has changed her life, but she isn't happier with her new life, because she can't go back and she doesn't arrive to manage her new life. ( two Swiss students
Rating: 
Summary: Does fate exist thanks to the existstence of societies?
Review: This is yet another play written by Russel criticising the british classing system. This book tells the story of a young women, tired of her own class, who wants to change her way of life. This makes her an outcast in both her society and the one she is trying to become a member of....it is gripping and moving, but unfortunately very true..
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