The Good Person of Szechwan

The Good Person of Szechwan (German: Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, first translated less literally as The Good Man of Setzuan)^[1] is a play written by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Margarete Steffin and Ruth Berlau.^[2] The play was begun in 1938 but not completed until 1941, while the author was in exile in the United States. It was first performed in 1943 at the Zürich Schauspielhaus in Switzerland, with a musical score and songs by Swiss composer Huldreich Georg Früh.^[3] Today, Paul Dessau's composition of the songs from 1947 to 1948, also authorized by Brecht, is the better-known version. The play is an example of Brecht's "non-Aristotelian drama", a dramatic form intended to be staged with the methods of epic theatre. The play is a parable set in the Chinese "city of Sichuan".^[4]

^ The title of the play is translated as The Good Person of Szechwan by John Willett in vol. 6 of Brecht's Plays, Poetry and Prose series edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim. The play first appeared in English as The Good Man of Setzuan (1948; revised 1961) by Eric Bentley and has been translated as The Good Person of Sichuan (1990) by Michael Hofmann, and more recently as The Good Soul of Szechuan (2008) by David Harrower. Tony Kushner adapted the play as The Good Person of Szechwan (1997). See Willett and Manheim (1994), Bentley (2007), Hofmann (1990), and Harrower (2008).
^ Willett. 1967. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. ISBN 0-413-34360-X, 50–51.
^ Willett. 1967. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. ISBN 0-413-34360-X, 51.
^ Brecht seems to have become aware that Sichuan was actually a province over the course of several drafts (appended in Willet 1994) and the version eventually published by Suhrkamp has "The capital of Sezuan" (though there are no details that suggest the action might take place in Chengdu). Bentley introduced the spelling Setzuan as a transcription of the German 'Sezuan' (and defends it in the forward to the 1999 printing); other translators have used the names Szechuan or Szechwan.

[1] The title of the play is translated as The Good Person of Szechwan by John Willett in vol. 6 of Brecht's Plays, Poetry and Prose series edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim. The play first appeared in English as The Good Man of Setzuan (1948; revised 1961) by Eric Bentley and has been translated as The Good Person of Sichuan (1990) by Michael Hofmann, and more recently as The Good Soul of Szechuan (2008) by David Harrower. Tony Kushner adapted the play as The Good Person of Szechwan (1997). See Willett and Manheim (1994), Bentley (2007), Hofmann (1990), and Harrower (2008).

[2] Willett. 1967. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. ISBN 0-413-34360-X, 50–51.

[3] Willett. 1967. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. ISBN 0-413-34360-X, 51.

[4] Brecht seems to have become aware that Sichuan was actually a province over the course of several drafts (appended in Willet 1994) and the version eventually published by Suhrkamp has "The capital of Sezuan" (though there are no details that suggest the action might take place in Chengdu). Bentley introduced the spelling Setzuan as a transcription of the German 'Sezuan' (and defends it in the forward to the 1999 printing); other translators have used the names Szechuan or Szechwan.

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