Rita, a young hairdresser, registers for a literature course offered by the Open University, sensing that it will enrich and increase her possibilities in life. During her tutorials, she becomes a different person, gradually liberating herself from the limitations of her working class background, family and marriage. She exchanges the small talk of the hair salon where she works for the student chatter about art and literature. Her teacher Frank, like Professor Higgins in Bernard Shaw’s PYGMALION, spends months educating Rita and, in a way, falls in love with her; but is finally shocked by the Frankenstein he has created. For Rita has mastered all the terminology for passing exams, but, in the process, has lost the innocence, the spontaneity and the dependence on him that so attracted Frank to her in the first place. Although its background is education, the basic theme of EDUCATING RITA, like PYGMALION, is human relations. The play is, at its core, an amusing look at the student-teacher relationship—its pains as well as its joys.
