The good person of Szechwan

How can someone be good when everything around them is so expensive?” Brecht’s question poses a timeless moral quandary which the multi-talented young director, Katerina Evangelatos, has undertaken to confront us with.

In The good person of Szechwan (written 1926-1941), the gods track down the only good person on Earth: a prostitute in the province of Szetsuan in China. The gods reward the kind-hearted Shen Teh with a sizable sum of money, but when she uses it to open a small tobacco shop, the poverty-stricken and spiteful townsfolk are enraged. As she prepares to face them, Shen Teh comes up with an alter ego, a supposed cousin of hers, the devious Shui Ta, and from now on, she will adopt his form whenever the circumstances require. But how long can she stand to play this double role of victim and perpetrator? Only the most imaginative artist can play a good person”: Brecht’s primary demand seems to have been met with the casting of Stefania Goulioti in the lead role.