The Good Person Of Szechwan

WORKING THROUGH THE PLAY IN A PRACTICAL WAY

From the beginning the exercises assume a knowledge of the story-line and what happens to the characters. It is important, therefore, that before you start the following work you will have read the play. At the very least, you should have read the plot outline and other notes that precede this section.

I try never to be dictatorial in the practical work. There is no version that is more right or more wrong than another. What the following work hopes to encourage is the habit of experiment. Too often, when you read a line it is the first meaning that becomes fixed in the mind.

It is important that you also get in the habit of recording the results of all the work you do. When experimenting with a character this is especially important. At the end you will need to go through all your work on each character and on your design choices once more, checking that your decisions make sense.

PROLOGUE

In preparation for the first task - a preliminary discussion on setting - the class needs both to have read the play and made a note of the different settings required.

Brecht's ideas on setting are well-known. Reading the introduction to the Methuen student edition, which lists many productions over the years, it is clear that there are many precedents you could follow. Some pick out the poverty emphasised by Wang in his opening speech and create a setting made up of planks, barbed wire, hessian sacks, slabs of cement, and so on. Others go for a more stylised Oriental effect.

Start by discussing the pros and cons of both these. The first idea can be made specific to a particular place [as one Italian version did by creating an Italian shanty town], so you could have, for instance, the feeling of a Northern industrial estate, with huge smoking chimneys in the background, or the kind of 'towns' that spring up in parts of South America, or Africa, on the outskirts of cities - sprawling huts made of corrugated iron, sacking doorways and roughly cobbled together walls. Such a place would emphasise the poverty of the region and the bleak prospects of those struggling for work within such an environment.

One past version had the auditorium done up like a factory, emphasising the destined work of many at the poorer end of the social scale. How would you bring such an idea into a design for the stage? A revolve which the characters have to push with effort to change scenes? Conveyor belts at the edges of the stage, along which perhaps the Gods could be brought in? A suggestion of machines, of doors, of clanging metal shutters?

Or perhaps you will favour the Oriental version: the sides of the stage pinned with 'silk', with Chinese lettering written large, bamboo screens [as one early version employed] - which can be moved to denote changes of place. Brecht tends to place his plays in pre-technological settings. Even the factory uses manpower rather than machinery. The main weight of the play lies in the effect of poverty and joblessness on people. Of course, you may want to bring the play up to date by suggesting modern workplaces, and this too should be discussed.

Many of the settings are quite open: in front of, or behind, the tobacconist shop, a square, a street, a park, a seedy restaurant, a court-room. The exceptions are Shen Teh's tobacconist shop and the tobacco factory where there is some necessity for the establishment of place, especially with the former.

I once saw a touring cast perform this play [very well indeed] with a cast of 5 - very busy - people and a trucked on shop front, which had windows and hatches that could be opened and which could be reversed to show shelves and a counter for the shop. The whole edifice was permanently onstage, altering slightly by the opening or closing of its many apertures. For instance, one panel turned to reveal the logo for 'Shen-Te's Tobacconist Shop'. Other panels announced such settings as were necessary. In addition, there were hooks built in, where people could change character by adding or subtracting a part of their costume. It was multi-purpose and effective, leaving the large majority of the playing area free to become 'any place.'

A free discussion where such options are put forward and explored verbally will also introduce many other aspects of Brechtian playing. It will emphasise for the students the main features and themes of the play. Choices made at this stage are by no means fixed, but some will start to make preferences here which will perhaps guide them in other choices along the way.

For the purpose of working practically through the play, the group need to use the playing space as an open place, fitting their own setting ideas in as each scene is worked on.

The Prologue is set in a street. Wang the water-seller could live in this very street. On many occasions, Brecht specifies that he emerges from the culvert where he sleeps at night. A culvert is a ditch or a channel which he could emerge from somewhere on or under the stage. Depending on your setting, Wang could live in a large piece of piping, a ditch covered with cardboard, corrugated iron or plastic [the stage trap-door?], or simply huddle in a door-way. It depends on the statement you want to make with him. He is close to the bottom rung of the working poor, only surpassed by the jobless poor.

How modern do you want to make him? Is he carrying buckets on a yoke across his shoulders, with ladle/scoops for the water? Is he [as I experienced in La Place at Marrakesh recently] carrying trays of plastic water bottles to hawk to passers-by? Does he have a little hand-cart carrying containers of water, either old-time or modern? [This has the advantage of freeing the actor's hands.]

What state of mind should Wang show at the opening of his speech? Try the first section of the speech up to and including: 'For the last three days ... so that I may be the first to greet them.':
fast and eager; he is buoyed up by excitement at seeing these gods
tired and hopeless at first, with the emergence of slight hope on the last sentence
neutral, speaking quite slowly and clearly - this has the effect of a touch of cynicism from the mention of the gods onwards

Which comes over in the way you want? What effect do you want to aim for in this opening?

What kind of 'gods' are expected? What can you tell about Brecht's attitude to religion from Wang's expectations? It appears that these gods have little to do with mankind and their lives. They are out of touch, rarely seen. Yet Wang expects something. His attitude is much like someone waiting for the arrival of a rock star, or royalty. Yet his humility is touching and puts the audience on his side. He is sure he is not important enough for them, but if he spots them first, perhaps they will take a little notice of him.

The next section of the speech is full of political statements about the classes. Start with an exercise in which the class are both reminded of gestus and the need for clarity of facial and body movement that accompanies it. Make group tableaux of the following:
servants and master/mistress
slaves and overseer
office workers and tyrannical boss
factory workers and factory owner showing a group of his friends around
beggars - the unemployed poor - in a street where wealthy business-men work

Remember that gestus is both clear body and facial language [plus appropriate voice] which communicates a clear message to an audience who, in these cases, have sympathy for the working-classes and dislike, even condemnation, of the upper classes.

Starting with your frozen tableau for each of the above, move the scene using appropriate vocal tones for each speaking character. Keep the clarity of the message throughout.
Finally, with the whole class, try some crowd movements where a clear gestus is made of:
a] the labourers bent from long hours under heavy loads
b] people who are 'at most' clerks 'in a cement works'. That is, they are also poor and down-trodden, ill-used, though not manual workers. Think of Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's clerk in A Christmas Carol.
c] the gentlemen who 'have the brutal faces of men who beat people'

Reading through the scene again, what statement would you like to make with the appearance of the gods? They could be colourful and absurd; or like politicians out on a fact-finding mission. They could be shabby, their rich clothes showing signs of wear and tear. The way they walk and talk needs to match your decision.

Of course the gods do not all need to be male.

Try them:
very over-the-top, as if unused to walking in dirty streets, picking their way fastidiously, hands held high to express their disgust at the surroundings. Their walks could each be very exaggeratedly 'silly'
like practical business-men, looking round with interest, taking notes and photographs, tut-tutting in disapproval, their movements and walks neat and precise
a mixture of the above, differentiating each of the three
Discuss also other options, such as entering on bizarre 'vehicles' - a bicycle with Heath Robinson additions such as a parasol and a fan and a reclining seat. One entering on smallish stilts, all entering in a small car, or a tuk-tuk or rickshaw, sliding down a rainbow, or down a long staircase preceded by the sounds of an aeroplane.

I am sure you will find other ideas to add to these. The idea is to have fun with the three. They are fantasy characters. The statement you are making with them emphasises either their uselessness [out-of-touch etc.], or their being out-of-date, or their being not much better than one of the human ruling-classes, unaware of or disinterested in the problems facing the poor. The latter allies the gods with the audience so that both are educated in the difficulties of being 'good' in the world as it is, during the course of the play.

With the whole group used to establish the street, try the whole speech now, using the decisions you have made so far.