Students Star in The Good Woman of Sichuan by Brecht

November 13, 2008

Students rehearsing the play

"It's a parable play with an unexpected message," says Director Peggi McCarthy of the Bertolt Brecht play going up on Fisher Theater's mainstage this weekend.

"Three gods have come to earth to find enough good people to make the planet worth saving," says McCarthy as she summarizes the plot. "By the time they get to Sichuan, they've had no luck at all. No one will even put them up for the night. The water-seller Wang finally persuades Shen Te, the prostitute, to host them. The gods are thrilled to find her and give her some money, with which she buys a tobacco business in hopes of becoming prosperous enough to do some real good."

The play takes a disconcerting Brechtian turn, however. "Shen Te's shop is overrun with cadgers and hangers-on, whom she's too kind to evict," continues McCarthy. "She creates an alterego, her cousin Shui Ta, a hard-headed businessman. While she's alternating between her 2 personalities, she falls in love with a bounder, becomes pregnant, and resolves for the sake of her future child to bring in the tough cousin for the duration. Her friends think she's been murdered (as Shui Ta gets fatter). The play ends with Shui Ta on trial. The 3 gods are judges. Shui Ta has to reveal herself. The gods are delighted to see their one good person still alive, and they go merrily back to heaven while she pleads for help."

McCarthy directs a cast of 13 students in grades prep through senior. "Our style is timeless/Chinese/universal," she explains. "Since Brecht set the play in Sichuan, we felt we needed to acknowledge the earthquakes of last spring." Cary Wendell, designer and technical director of Fisher Theater, "has built a set that accommodates that notion," McCarthy adds. "Our basic presumption is that everyone's scrabbling to get to the bottom rung of the ladder. Brecht is, was, a Marxist and his writing always reflects the workings of economics."

Don't miss the mainstage show this weekend. Show times:

Friday, November 14 at 7:30 p.m.,
Saturday, November 15 at 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 16 at 1:00 p.m.

For tickets, call the Fisher Theater Box Office at 603-777-3504.

 See a photo album from rehearsals...

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