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The Good Soul of Szechuan
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Young Vic, 66 The Cut, SE1 8LZ
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Rating:
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- The death-toll of the Szechuan earthquake is currently estimated at 33,000. So this revival of Brecht’s parable, in which three indifferent Gods try to wash their hands of the suffering province ASAP, is tragically timely.
Brecht’s play protests human, not natural disaster. ‘Be good’ instruct the Gods to Shen Te (Jane Horrocks), the tart-with-a-heart who’s given them shelter for the night. ‘But how can I when everything’s so expensive?’ she wails. The Gods can’t be bothered to remake the whole dog-eat-dog capitalist world, so they slip her some cash instead, and she buys a shop. But hangers-on bankrupt her kindness, so she dons trousers and stands up to them by pretending to be Shui Ta, Shen Te’s stony-hearted cousin.
Richard Jones’s point-blank production is discordant, and highly committed (after Brecht) to alienating and enlightening the audience. Paule Constable’s glaring lighting interrogates everyone at dramatic flash-points. And Miriam Buether’s set emphasises, through wall-to-wall MDF-cladding and cement-bag conveyor belts, the grinding impossibility of achieving moral beauty in this total environment.
Jones uses Brecht’s 1943 rewrite of the play, where Shen Te, dumped at the altar by the lover who liquidates her assets, flogs stolen opium, not tobacco, to secure the future of her unborn child. Jones’s production further intensifies her degraded choices: addicts, wearing brown paper bags with smiley faces on them, loom out of lockers and filing cabinets. And Shen Te’s ex-lover (excellently pitched as a sentimental brute by John Marquez) becomes one of them.
Brecht’s arguments, and the continuity of the plot, are not always clear. A good cast doesn’t look quite bedded-in to the jarring production. Horrocks makes Shen Te a meekly-mannered ageing waif. As Shui Ta, she gestures like Charlie Chaplin impersonating Hitler. She grows in power, but you don’t yet feel the full force of this split personality.
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Details
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Young Vic, 66 The Cut, SE1 8LZ
- 020 7922 2922
- Category: Off-West End
- Times: Mon-Sat 7.30pm (PN Wed 7pm), Sat & Wed Mats 2.30pm
- Price: previews £20 (to Tue), £22.50
- Tube: Southwark/Waterloo
- Rail: rail
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4 comments
A brilliant production. As rational, direct and intellectually engaging as you could hope Brecht to be. I was rivited.
"I do not write for the scum who want the cockles of their hearts warmed" - Brecht.
Prepare to be challanged and disturbed.
fantastic play! pigs will fly!
jane horrocks=wonderful and the staging was fantastic. amusing and good message to be left with.
Single paced and mediocre . An extraordinary waste of everyones's time.
Vale a pena ver este!