Ans. The Good Person of Szechwan is a popular play by Bertolt Brecht written at the times when Nazism was at its peak in Germany. Through the depiction of Shen Teh’s life, the writer unpacks the universal themes of hunger, poverty, and misery. To create a conscious society, Brecht smartly deploys the technique of epic theatre and challenges the traditions of bourgeois theatre. Brecht has an interest in unifying past events with the art form, so he used the concept of epic theatricality in the play.
The term ‘Epic Theatre’ was coined by Erwin Piscator, which aimed to bring the “contemporary issue” of the time to light. The Good Person of Szechwan is similar to this, as it gives us a message about the capitalist system and through the play, Brecht wants to evoke the power of thinking in the minds of the audience. According to Bertolt Brecht, the epic theatre was above other forms of theatre as epic plays are usually didactic.
The story begins with the prologue in which gods are looking for at least one good person in Szechwan and they even found one. The young woman, Shen Teh who by profession is a prostitute fits their description of a good person. But Shen Teh is torn between greed, hunger, goodness, love, money, power, and the needs of her neighbors and friends. In order to survive in this unjust world, Shen Teh creates her double as a cousin, Shui Ta who takes over and manages her business.
Thus, by involving the greedy and needy character of Wang, Yang Sun, and other neighbors and friends, Brecht wanted to take the issue of the lower class. The injustice amongst the lower class is the main issue Brecht wanted to take into consideration. In a way, he wants the audience to question the capitalist nature of society.
The issue of class distinction is directly or indirectly is been referred to as capitalism. And surviving in this capitalist nature is just not easy, especially for the good people. In a society where everyone knows how to take and not give anything in return will certainly harm good people like Shen Teh. The feature of no suspense or thrill in the play is kept till the end because somehow the audience was aware that Shen Teh's goodness will harm her.
The element of epic theatricality has a prolonged impact till the end of the play. Though the dramatic progression in the play is been interrupted by various addition, that of verses, songs, and conversational dialogues with the audience to let the audience think about the issue with their minds open. These songs work as a tool for breaking the illusions of an audience such as “Song of the smoke”, which is introduced in the play for entertainment purposes only but it successfully brings the audience back to reality.
The way Brecht has loosely connected different scenes to avoid any sought illusions keeps the play confined to the norms and tradition of epic theatre. With the help of this technique, he tries to create a distance between the audience and the play, the audience can easily gain critical insight into it. Though, Brecht had a very different notion about theatre from that of conventional views. According to him, the play should be based on a familiar incidence, the subject of which is taken from past events, by employing such techniques Brecht challenges the notion of Aristotelian theatre.
Brecht denies serving the audience a neat, densely crafted resolution at the end and thus, the theatricality of epic theatre is sustained till the end of the play. The play has no proper ending or closure, Brecht radically breaks downs the ‘Golden myth of how Shen Teh’s love for Sun Yang be fulfilled and how will Shen Teh pursues to retain her natural kindness. Thus, this is how Brecht puts an end to the play and sown a seed of question in the minds of the audience as to what step Shen Teh should take to live a happy and satisfying life.
Brecht wrote Good Person of Szechwan in a form in which the mode of literature and past events are served to reveal the oppressive norms which use vested interest. Brecht said that in the play he uses “certain techniques that are old and as new as the war itself.” Thus, epic theatre becomes an individual input to cultivate the judgment about the socially transformative actions that we need to take in life. However, epic theatre is also considered an educational experience.
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