About the work
Bertolt Brecht's „The Good Person of Szechwan" was written in exile in 1939-41 and premiered in Zurich in 1943. The parable play in ten scenes and a closing apotheosis is one of the most important plays of epic theatre and asks whether it is at all possible to be good in a capitalist world.
Plot
In the Chinese province of Szechwan, three gods are seeking a good person — otherwise they must declare the world cannot be saved. The water seller Wang leads them to the young prostitute Shen Te, the only one who gives them shelter for the night. The gods reward Shen Te with money; she buys a small tobacco shop. Soon, however, hangers-on, old acquaintances and smugglers' families flood in; her goodness drives her toward ruin. She invents a fictitious cousin „Shui Ta" — she herself, in male disguise — who handles business hard and consistently, throws out spongers, collects debts. The two identities Shen Te / Shui Ta alternate. Shen Te loves the pilot Yang Sun, who plans to abandon her for another and needs money for a rich marriage. She becomes pregnant. A builder is bullied at Shui Ta's tobacco factory. At the court hearing — the gods sit as judges — Shen Te reveals her double identity: „He was me, my cousin Shui Ta. He and I are one." The gods are at a loss: „Should the world be changed? How? By whom?" They vanish into the clouds. Closing words: „There must be a good person somewhere. Find one yourselves."
Cultural significance
The Good Person of Szechwan is Brecht's most dialectically dense play and a model text for the inseparability of goodness and self-interest under capitalism. The double role Shen Te/Shui Ta is one of the great acting challenges — notable interpreters include Helene Weigel, Hanne Hiob and Klaus Maria Brandauer (1985, with cathartic effect). Berliner Ensemble productions and the film with Hilmar Thate are classics. The play is performed worldwide; the open final-question model shapes Brecht's theatrical ideal.