The Good Soul of Szechuan

Three gods are on a journey to find out if there are any good people left on earth. Only Shen Te, a good-hearted prostitute, offers them shelter. With the money they give her she opens a tobacco shop. At once everyone needs her help. Her livelihood is in danger. Worse, she is falling in love with Sun, a pilot, who is robbing her blind. Her hard-hearted cousin Shui Ta arrives to protect her. Who is he and how can good people stay good in a world of poverty and cruelty?

The Good Person of Szechuan was first produced in 1943 at the Zurich Schauspielhaus and is the same play long known in the United States as The Good Woman of Szechuan. It was originally published here in 1948 as one of Brecht's Two Parables for the Theatre. Brecht started work on the play shortly before he left Denmark in 1939, some six months before the outbreak of World War II. He was preparing to move to America, and was hoping to raise interest in producing it here. Kurt Weill thought that he might be able to arrange a Broadway production, and Brecht made what he termed "a Szechwan version for here." This alternative version of the script was datelined Santa Monica 1943, and has become known as 'The Santa Monica version'. It is shorter than the original, and sheds a more critical light on the heroine's goodness.

This translation by David Harrower, based on the Santa Monica version of Brecht's famous parable, premiered at the Young Vic, London, in 2008.

The Time

Sometime in the last century

The Place

The capital of Szechuan Province

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