While discussing Chekov, Rita decides they must go to the theater, and convinces Frank to accompany her even though he is wary of what he deems “amateur” performances.Īs time passes, Rita grows prouder of her interest in literary subjects and the theater. She knows that they don’t, as having choices in television stations is not the same as real choices.įrank tries to get her to talk more about this but she insists they need to return to studying. Rita explains to Frank how Denny feels betrayed, and how he thinks they already have choices in their lives. The next time they meet, Frank is annoyed that Rita does not have her essay but eases up on her when she reveals Denny burnt all of her stuff because he was mad at her for not taking her birth control pill anymore and going back to school. Frank says it is no matter, as he wants to talk about an essay asking about the staging of Peer Gynt in which her response was simply to “do it on the radio." She admits it is short, and says Denny does not like her to work on essays at home.įor a bit they talk about culture, with Rita saying the working class has no culture, and Frank trying to say they do but through Rita’s probing questions coming to admit perhaps they do not. In Act III, Rita rushes in, apologizing for being late because of a talkative customer. He says maybe he would not be so prone to disappearing from Julia if she was more like Rita. This is perplexing to her.Īs they continue to talk, Frank’s world-weariness is even more apparent. He says he was once but no longer, as he was a failed poet and his wife wanted to give him new fodder. Rita, often scatterbrained and prone to non-sequiturs, asks Frank if he is married. This incensed her, but Frank is amused and says she cannot look at the book in such a light. She then says she read a Forster book Frank had mentioned in their first meeting but hated it because he said within the book that he did not like poor people.
She has trouble with the concept of criticizing something she likes. She went along with everyone else but started to wonder recently if she was missing something.įrank draws her attention to something she wrote on Rubyfruit Jungle, which he says is too subjective and has no real literary criticism in it. He asks about her schools of her youth and she explains that people just argued and fought and never paid attention and anyone who wanted to learn did not fit in. He eventually tries to get rid of her but she tenaciously pursues him as her tutor. Frank agrees to teach her but is openly disillusioned with education and tells her once he is done that she should leave and not come back.
Rita also tells him how she wants to improve herself but that her husband Denny does not understand what she is trying to do.
She tells him her name is actually Susan, but that she calls herself Rita after the author of her favorite book, Rubyfruit Jungle, which she presses him to read. She starts asking him questions, such as what 'assonance' means. She laughs that he needs a haircut but he insists he does not. He asks her what she is there for and what she wants to learn, and she answers, “everything." He is surprised, and she talks on and on about how she is hungry to learn and is tired of the “ignorant masses” around her and of her job as a hairdresser where she has to listen to her customers talk of inconsequential things. He offers her a drink, and reveals his bottles hidden behind his books. She points out a nude painting on the wall that Frank says he never looks at anymore, jokes with him, and states her opinions on various matters straightforwardly and without guile. Rita enters, loud and brash but charming. He is mostly good-humored but rather weary and prone to mild bitterness and sarcasm. Frank is on the phone with Julia, his younger, live-in girlfriend, saying he will be going by the pub after work but promises to be home later. She is there to be tutored after having decided to return to school. Rita, a working-class woman in her twenties from Liverpool, arrives at the office of Frank, a late middle-aged professor at a university.
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