"The good person from Szetsuan" by Bertolt Brecht

“How can someone be good when everything around them is so expensive?”
Brecht’s question poses a timeless moral quandary which the multi-talented young director, Katerina Evangelatos, has undertaken to confront us with. In "The good person of Szetsuan" (written 1926-1941), the gods track down the only good person on Earth: a prostitute in the province of Szetsuan in China. The gods reward the kind-hearted Shen Teh with a sizeable sum of money, but when she uses it to open a small tobacco shop, the poverty-stricken and spiteful townsfolk are enraged. As she prepares to face them, Shen Teh comes up with an alter ego, a supposed cousin of hers, the devious Shui Ta, and from now on, she will adopt his form whenever the circumstances require. But how long can she stand to play this double role of victim and perpetrator? “Sen Te has to be played by a first-class actor. Only the most imaginative artist can play a good person”: Brecht’s primary demand seem to have been met with the casting of Stefania Goulioti in the lead role.

Prologue: The performance begins with a prologue written by Katerina Evangelatos and the actors.
Epilogue: The performance ends with excerpts of three poems by Bertold Brecht: "Viele sind für die Ordnung", "Vom armen B.B" and "Andere die Welt: sie braucht es.

“Der gute Mensch von Sezuan”, Bertolt Brecht
© Suhrkamp Verlag