Brecht’s ‘Good Person of Szechwan’ at the Public Theater

At the moment, I can’t think of a better description for the Foundry Theatre’s nutty production of Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan, now playing at the Public Theater in New York. There, you’ll find audience members (at least those under 30) rolling in the aisles.

This kitschy, politically incorrect version of Brecht’s play revels in irreverence. The title role of the Chinese prostitute Shen Te is played by a drag queen. The object of her affection, Yang Sun, is an African-American body builder. His mother, Mi Tzu, is the caricature of a Jewish yenta. The three gods who visit Szechwan are a bizarre, multicultural version of The Supremes. The entire mise-en-scène is a mockery of a set design, with a town made out of cardboard houses and corrugated boxes. The onstage rock band is dressed in get-ups that a homeless shelter would refuse.

But as the Bard says, “Though this be madness, then there is method in’t.” The cumulative effect is a kind of demented “in-yer-face” cabaret, reflecting the provocative style of Brecht’s work.

Like all the plays Brecht wrote while exiled in America from Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1945, The Good Person of Szechwan is a parable. It’s what Brecht called a lehrstücke— a play that teaches a lesson. In this case, the lesson is what it takes to lead a truly good life.

Good-hearted prostitute

Brecht sets his tale in the Chinese province in Szechwan, sometime in the distant past. The play’s narrator (Wang, a water seller) alerts the audience to the arrival of the “Illustrious Ones”— prestigious gods who roam the land, seeking “good” people who live according to their tenets. (Thus far, they’ve failed, finding only evil and greedy ones.) The gods (three elderly ladies in sequined garb and silver fright wigs) arrive in the town at night, seeking shelter, but no one shows them the slightest sign of charity— save for Shen Te, a good-hearted prostitute who interrupts her professional activities to take them in.

To reward Shen Te for her good deed, the gods provide her with money to open a tiny tobacco shop. In fact, this gift is a test. Should she profit and at the same time preserve her goodness, the gods will rekindle their faith in mankind.

Unfortunately, Shen Te is too “good” to succeed in such a complex capitalist endeavor, and her shop soon falls prey to criminals, with the police threatening to step in and manage the chaos. Overwhelmed, Shen Te invents a male cousin named Shui Ta (whom she impersonates) and tells the community that Shui Ta will take over the shop. Soon Shui Ta (Shen Te in disguise), employing cutthroat and cruel business practices, is profiting prodigiously. Eventually the townsfolk grow suspicious of Shui Ta, and he ends up in court, charged with the disappearance and possible murder of his cousin.

Meanwhile, Shen Te (as herself) meets Yang Sun, a pilot, who exploits her, impregnates her and robs her. (It gets complicated, as Brecht often does.)

Brecht vs. Anne Frank

Brecht questions man’s capacity to be essentially good in a world that’s essentially not good. It’s a timeless question, one that’s certainly germane today, in a world where so many people seem to have lost faith in our leaders, our key institutions and each other.

Yet others still reject Brecht’s hardcore cynicism. At the same time as Brecht was writing The Good Person, another European author wrote: “In spite of everything, I still believe people are essentially good at heart.” That was a 13-year-old Jewish girl named Anne Frank, hiding with her family in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.

“A theater that makes no contact with the public is nonsense,” Brecht said. I brought a class of 23 graduate playwriting students to see the performance.

‘Don’t take it seriously’

Had I gone alone, I might have grumbled about the tastelessness of some of the Foundry’s choices, which seemed to ridicule every race, religion and creed (e.g., the Jewish mother in the leopard-skin coat). For me, at times, the Foundry made a mockery of Brecht’s serious-minded investigation.

But my students found the Foundry’s shamelessness hilarious, as well as effective. “Don’t take it so seriously,” they told me. “They’re giving us permission to laugh at ourselves, as well as everyone else.” Soon I joined in with them. Actually, I found it quite liberating.

Perhaps my generation’s political correctness inhibits our basic instincts and responses, thereby preventing us from recognizing our own self-delusion, self-aggrandizement and selfishness— not to mention our innate prejudices and corrupt predilections. Perhaps, like the characters in Brecht’s play, we’re not as “good” as we think we are, after all. And that’s reason enough to laugh in self-recognition, and change.

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways,” Brecht wrote. “The point is to change it.”

In videotapes I’ve seen of Brecht at a rehearsal of one of his plays, he indicated his approval by bursting into uncontrollable, high-pitched guffaws. Had he seen this production, I suspect, he would have been laughing, too.