The good person of Szechwan / Bertolt Brecht ; translated by John Willett.

Gute Mensch von Sezuan. English

109 p. : ill. (on cover) ; 21 cm.

Translation of Der gute Mensch von Setzuan.

Brecht’s famous parable pivots around a moral paradox – that in an unjust society good can only survive by means of evil. The play opens on three gods, who have come to earth in search of enough good people to justify their existence. They find Shen Teh, a good-hearted and penniless prostitute, and make her a gift that enables her to set up her own business. But her generosity brings ruin and trouble to her small tobacco shop, and she is forced to disguise herself as an invented male cousin, Shui Ta, in order to reclaim her shop from the scroungers and creditors. Shui Ta turns out to be the stern and ruthless counterpoint to Shen Teh, helping her to capitalist success and financially-motivated marriage, but not to happiness. Through this sharply split personality Brecht points to the impossibility of living anything like a ‘good’ life in a corrupted and persistently exploitative world.

10m, 5w.

Men

D B829gu 1962