EDUCATING RITA

This modern day British comedy written by Willy Russell, which has lured audiences all over the world, is being staged in Mumbai again after nearly 20 years. Rita, a 26 year old married hair-dresser, who is hungry to 'know everything' gets assigned to the English tutor Frank in an open university course. Frank, in his fifties, is a disillusioned professor who takes to drinking, so much so that he keeps his whisky bottles stashed behind the books in his library. Rita enters his life as a breeze of fresh air and life changes for the both of them. However, the lack of support from her husband, the fight she has to put up against the age old norms of a married woman getting an education instead of having a baby and the problems of a formal education geared only to pass exams she loses her fresh and intuitive approach. And thus their relationship takes a number of twists and turns which do not fail to amuse and amaze the audience. Willy Russell has woven the various threads of human relations in a marvellous fashion with startling remarks on the state of society, education as well as the difficulties a married woman faces to get an education.

This play was first staged by the late theatre guru Pt. Satyadev Dubey in-'93-'94 in which he enacted the role of Frank along with the veteran Marathi actress Neena Kulkarni enacting the role of Rita. This time around the play is being directed by Pratima Kulkarni with Professor Ajit Kelkar (also known as 'The Common Man') and Dr. Pradnya Shastri essaying the roles of Frank and Rita.