''The Good Person of Szechwan'' (german: Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, first translated less literally as ''The Good Man of Setzuan'') is a play written by the
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
dramatist
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays.
Etymology
The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with
Margarete Steffin
Margarete Emilie Charlotte Steffin (21 March 1908 – 4 June 1941) was a German actress and writer, one of Bertold Brecht's closest collaborators, as well as a prolific translator from Russian and Scandinavian languages.
Biography
Born to a pr ...
and
Ruth Berlau
Ruth Berlau (24 August 1906, Charlottenlund – 15 January 1974, East Berlin) was a Danish actress, director, photographer and writer, known for her collaboration with Bertolt Brecht and for founding the Bertolt-Brecht-Archiv
in Berlin.
Born ...
. The play was begun in 1938 but not completed until 1941, while the author was in exile in the United States. It was first performed in 1943 at the
Zürich Schauspielhaus in
Switzerland, with a musical score and songs by Swiss composer
Huldreich Georg Früh
Huldreich Georg Früh (15 June 1903 – 25 April 1945) was a Swiss composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Ma ...
. Today,
Paul Dessau
Paul Dessau (19 December 189428 June 1979) was a German composer and conductor. He collaborated with Bertolt Brecht and composed incidental music for his plays, and several operas based on them.
Biography
Dessau was born in Hamburg into a ...
's composition of the songs from 1947–48, also authorized by Brecht, is the better-known version. The play is an example of Brecht's "
non-Aristotelian drama Non-Aristotelian drama, or the 'epic form' of the drama, is a kind of play whose dramaturgical structure departs from the features of classical tragedy in favour of the features of the epic, as defined in each case by the ancient Greek philosophe ...
", a dramatic form intended to be staged with the methods of
epic theatre
Epic theatre (german: episches Theater) is a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to the political climate of the time through the creat ...
. The play is a
parable set in the Chinese "city of
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...
".
Themes
Originally, Brecht planned to call the play ''The Product Love'' (''Die Ware Liebe''), meaning "love as a
commodity". This title was a play on words, since the German term for "true love" (''Die wahre Liebe'') is pronounced the same way.
The play follows a young prostitute, Shen Teh ( zh, 沈黛/沈德), as she struggles to lead a life that is "good" according to the terms of the morality taught by the gods, and to which her fellow citizens of Szechwan (Sichuan) pay no regard, without allowing herself to be abused and trodden upon by those who would accept and, more often than not, abuse her goodness. Her neighbors and friends prove so brutal in the filling of their bellies that Shen Teh is forced to invent an
alter ego to protect herself: a male cousin named Shui Ta ( zh, 隋达/崔达), who becomes a cold and stern protector of Shen Teh's interests. The theme of qualitative "
goodness" (which seemed so simple and obvious in the title of the play) is rendered unstable by application to both genders, as Shen Teh realizes she must operate under the guise of both in order to live a good life. It has been argued that Brecht's use of the literary device of the split character in this play is a representation of the antagonism between individual-being and species-being that underlies bourgeois societies.
Brecht's interest in
historical materialism
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
is evident in the play's definition of contemporary morality and
altruism in social and economic terms. Shen Teh's altruism conflicts with Shui Ta's
capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
ethos of
exploitation
Exploitation may refer to:
*Exploitation of natural resources
*Exploitation of labour
** Forced labour
*Exploitation colonialism
*Slavery
** Sexual slavery and other forms
*Oppression
*Psychological manipulation
In arts and entertainment
*Exploi ...
. The play implies that
economic systems determine a society's morality.
Plot summary
The play opens with Wang, a water seller, explaining to the audience that he is on the city outskirts awaiting the foretold appearance of several important
gods
A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater ...
. Soon the gods arrive and ask Wong to find them shelter for the night. They are tired, having travelled far and wide in search of good people who still live according to the principles that they, the gods, have handed down. Instead they have found only greed, evil, dishonesty, and selfishness. The same turns out to be true in Szechwan: no one will take them in, no one has the time or means to care for others – no one except the poor young prostitute Shen Teh, whose pure inherent
charity
Charity may refer to:
Giving
* Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons
* Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing
* C ...
cannot allow her to turn away anyone in need. Shen Teh was going to see a customer, but decides to help out instead; however, confusion follows, leaving Wong fleeing from the illustrious Ones and leaving his water
carrying pole behind.
Shen Teh is rewarded for her hospitality, as the gods take it as a sure sign of goodness. They give her money and she buys a humble
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
shop which they intend as both gift and test: will Shen Teh be able to maintain her goodness with these newfound means, however slight they may be? If she succeeds, the gods' confidence in humanity would be restored. Though at first Shen Teh seems to live up to the gods' expectations, her generosity quickly turns her small shop into a messy, overcrowded
poorhouse
A poorhouse or workhouse is a government-run (usually by a county or municipality) facility to support and provide housing for the dependent or needy.
Workhouses
In England, Wales and Ireland (but not in Scotland), ‘workhouse’ has been the ...
which attracts crime and police supervision. In a sense, Shen Teh quickly fails the test, as she is forced to introduce the invented cousin Shui Ta as overseer and protector of her interests. Shen Teh dons a costume of male clothing, a mask, and a forceful voice to take on the role of Shui Ta. Shui Ta arrives at the shop, coldly explains that his cousin has gone out of town on a short trip, curtly turns out the hangers-on, and quickly restores order to the shop.
At first, Shui Ta only appears when Shen Teh is in a particularly desperate situation, but as the action of the play develops, Shen Teh becomes unable to keep up with the demands made on her and is overwhelmed by the promises she makes to others. Therefore, she is compelled to call on her cousin's services for longer periods until at last her true personality seems to be consumed by her cousin's severity. Where Shen Teh is soft, compassionate, and vulnerable, Shui Ta is unemotional and pragmatic, even vicious; it seems that only Shui Ta is made to survive in the world in which they live. In what seems no time at all, he has built her humble shop into a full-scale tobacco factory with many employees.
Shen Teh also meets an unemployed male pilot, Yang Sun, with whom she quickly falls in love after preventing him from hanging himself. However, Yang Sun doesn't return Shen Teh's feelings but simply uses her for money and Shen Teh quickly falls pregnant with his child.
Eventually one of the employees hears Shen Teh crying, but when he enters only Shui Ta is present. The employee demands to know what he has done with Shen Teh, and when he cannot prove where she is, he is taken to court on the charge of having hidden or possibly murdered his cousin. The townspeople also discover a bundle of Shen Teh's clothing under Shui Ta's desk, which makes them even more suspicious. During the process of her trial, the gods appear in the robes of the judges, and Shui Ta says that he will make a confession if the room is cleared except for the judges. When the townspeople have gone, Shui Ta reveals herself to the gods, who are confronted by the dilemma that their seemingly arbitrary divine behavior has caused: they have created impossible circumstances for those who wish to live "good" lives, yet they refuse to intervene directly to protect their followers from the vulnerability that this "goodness" engenders.
At the end, following a hasty and
ironic
Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique.
Irony can be categorized into ...
(though literal)
deus ex machina
''Deus ex machina'' ( , ; plural: ''dei ex machina''; English "god out of the machine") is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Its function ...
, the narrator throws the responsibility of finding a solution to the play's problem onto the shoulders of the audience. It is for the spectator to figure out how a good person can possibly come to a good end in a world that, in essence, is ''not'' good. The play relies on the
dialectical possibilities of this problem, and on the assumption that the spectator will be moved to see that the current structure of society must be changed in order to resolve the problem.
Productions
![Mallika Sarabhai in play AKABR directed by Arvind Gaur](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Mallika_Sarabhai_in_play_AKABR_directed_by_Arvind_Gaur.jpg)
The first English-language performance in Britain, as ''The Good Woman of Setzuan'', was given at the
Progress Theatre in
Reading, Berkshire
Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, Southeast England, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers River Thames, Thames and River Kennet, Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 mot ...
in 1953.
Andrei Serban
Andrei Șerban (born June 21, 1943) is a Romanian-American theater director. A major name in twentieth-century theater, he is renowned for his innovative and iconoclastic interpretations and stagings. In 1992 he became Professor of Theater at the ...
directed the
Great Jones Repertory Company in productions of ''The Good Woman of Setzuan'' with music by
Elizabeth Swados
Elizabeth Swados (February 5, 1951 – January 5, 2016) was an American writer, composer, musician, and theatre director. Swados received Tony Award nominations for Best Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Origin ...
at
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in 1975, 1976, and 1978. The company also took the production on tour in Europe in 1976.
Composer/lyricist Michael Rice created a full-length musical version with
Eric Bentley
Eric Russell Bentley (September 14, 1916 – August 5, 2020) was a British-born American theater critic, playwright, singer, editor, and translator. In 1998, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. He was also a member of the New ...
which premiered in 1985 at the
Arkansas Repertory Theatre
Arkansas Repertory Theatre (The Rep) is the longest-running nonprofit resident theater in Arkansas. It is affiliated with Actors' Equity Association and offers a year-round season. The Rep is housed in a 377-seat facility in Little Rock, Arkansas. ...
, directed by Cliff Baker. This version was subsequently licensed through
Samuel French
Samuel French (1821–1898) was an American entrepreneur who, together with British actor, playwright and theatrical manager Thomas Hailes Lacy, pioneered in the field of theatrical publishing and the licensing of plays.
Biography
French foun ...
.
Episode five of the eighth season of the television series ''
Cheers'', "The Two Faces of Norm", was based on the play.
David Harrower
David Harrower (born 1966) is a Scottish playwright who (as of 2005) lives in Glasgow. Harrorwer has published over 10 original works, as well as numerous translations and adaptations.
Career
Harrower's first play, ''Knives in Hens'', which p ...
created a new translation entitled ''The Good Soul of Szechuan'', which opened at the
Young Vic theatre in London from May 8 - June 28, 2008, with
Jane Horrocks
Barbara Jane Horrocks (born 18 January 1964) is a British actress. She portrayed the roles of Bubble and Katy Grin in the BBC sitcom ''Absolutely Fabulous''. She was nominated for the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Actress for the title role in th ...
as Shen Te/Shui Ta and a score and songs by
David Sawer
David Sawer (born 14 September 1961), is a British composer of opera and choral, orchestral and chamber music.
Biography
Sawer was born in Stockport, England. After attending Ipswich School, he studied music at the University of York where he b ...
. This retained several features of the 1943 version, including the themes of
heroin and drug-dealing.
Indian theatre director
Arvind Gaur
Arvind Gaur is an Indian theatre director known for innovative, socially and politically relevant plays in India. Gaur's plays are contemporary and thought-provoking, connecting intimate personal spheres of existence to larger social politica ...
directed an Indian adaptation of this play by Amitabha Srivastava (
National School of Drama
National School of Drama (NSD) is a theatre training institute situated at New Delhi, India. It is an autonomous organization under Ministry of Culture, Government of India. It was set up in 1959 by the Sangeet Natak Akademi and became an indepe ...
) in 1996 with
Deepak Dobriyal
Deepak Dobriyal (born 1 September 1975) is an Indian film and theatre actor. He is recipient of a Filmfare award. He worked in many Bollywood films such as '' Omkara'' (2006), '' Shaurya'' (2008), ''Tanu Weds Manu'' (2011), '' Dabangg 2'' (2012) ...
,
Manu Rishi
Manu Rishi Chadha (born 3 January 1971) is an Indian actor, lyricist, script and dialogue writer who works in Hindi films. Rishi is trained under theatre director Arvind Gaur for six years. He won the Filmfare Best Dialogue Award, 2009 for '' O ...
and Aparna Singh as lead actors.
In December 2009,
Arvind Gaur
Arvind Gaur is an Indian theatre director known for innovative, socially and politically relevant plays in India. Gaur's plays are contemporary and thought-provoking, connecting intimate personal spheres of existence to larger social politica ...
reinterpreted this play with well-known activist and performer
Mallika Sarabhai
Mallika Sarabhai (born 9 May 1954) is an activist and Indian classical dancer and actress from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Daughter of a classical dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai and space scientist Vikram Sarabhai, Mallika is an accomplished Kuchip ...
as Shen Te/Shui Ta.
In August/September 2016, Ernie Nolan directed the play at the Cor Theater in Chicago. The role of Shen Te/Shui Ta was played by a male actor (Will Von Vogt) and the setting was a contemporary Chicago ghetto. Tony Kushner's 1997 adaptation was used.
Reception
Charles Marowitz
Charles Marowitz (26 January 1934 – 2 May 2014) was an American critic, theatre director, and playwright, regular columnist on Swans Commentary. He collaborated with Peter Brook at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and later founded and direct ...
listed ''The Good Person of Szechwan'' among Brecht's major plays in 1972.
Notes
Further reading
* Bentley, Eric, trans. & ed. 2007. ''The Good Woman of Setzuan''. By Bertolt Brecht. London: Penguin. .
* Brecht, Bertolt, and Eric Bentley. The Good Woman of Setzuan. New York: Grove Press, 1965. Print.
*
Harrower, David, trans. 2008. ''The Good Soul of Szechuan''. By Bertolt Brecht. London: Methuen. .
*
Hofmann, Michael, trans. 1990. ''The Good Person of Sichuan: The National Theatre Version''. By Bertolt Brecht. Methuen Modern Plays ser. London: Methuen. .
*
Willett, John and
Ralph Manheim
Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th cen ...
, eds. 1994. ''The Good Person of Szechwan''. Trans. Willett. In ''Collected Plays: Six''. By Bertolt Brecht. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry, Prose. London: Methuen. 1–111. .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Good Person of Szechwan, The
Plays by Bertolt Brecht
Compositions by Paul Dessau
1943 plays
Plays set in China
Sichuan in fiction