ABSTRACT
Auditory alarms in a broader context The excellent Willy Russell play Educating Rita, rst performed in 1980 and turned into a very successful lm in 1983, tells the story of an uneducated woman (Rita) seeking an education through the Open University, a UK university which is historically noted for its inclusive student recruitment policy. At one of their tutorial meetings Rita’s tutor, Frank, is unhappy with her most recent assignment. Frank reads the question: ‘Suggest how you might resolve the staging di€culties inherent in a production of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt’, to which Rita’s entire answer is one sentence: ‘Do it on the radio’. This line is not only one of the best comedic lines in the play, but from a pragmatic point of view Rita may be right. If there are inherent di€culties in doing something via one medium, and if it is easier to achieve a better eect via a dierent medium, then following that alternative route will be the best policy. Ibsen himself deliberately disregarded the problems inherent in staging a play with 40 scenes, in dierent times and places, so the play is probably best suited to non-visual staging, or an elaborate and expensive lm.
