The Good Person of Setzuan

The Good Person of Setzuan

Playwright: Bertolt Brecht

Directed by: Milt Zoth

April 24 - May 3, 2009

Starring: Kari Ely*, David Wassilak, Robert Ashton, Alex Woodruff, Healy Rodman, Larry Dell, Kevin Beyer, Kimberly Sansone, Chris Lyons, Lindsey Trout, Harry Weber, Patrick Vokaty, Katie McGee, James Canfield, Tyler Vickers, Aliyah Noel Studt, Cam Vennard, Missy Miller, Erin Almand, Eleanor Mullin, Ren Kozikowski, Hal Scharf, Sara Renschen, Kevin Dwyer, Kyle Powell and Amy Wall

Taken from Chinese folklore, Bertolt Brecht’s adaptation of this morality play ultimately asks how a good person can thrive in an ill-meaning, dishonest world. As the heroine finds a solution to her problems, “The Good Person of Setzuan” examines Brecht’s personal belief that altruism is in direct conflict with capitalism, and asks the audience how, or if, an honest person can balance the two.

This is a collaboration between St. Louis Actors’ Studio and Saint Louis University Theater Department.

*Member Actors' Equity Association

Paul Friswold, Riverfront Times

The Good Person of Setzuan Bertolt Brecht's dispassionate, intellectual cry for mercy among human beings receives a bracing staging through the joint efforts of St. Louis Actors' Studio and the Saint Louis University theater department. Director Milton Zoth moves his large cast with balletic grace over, under and through Jim Burwinkel's magnificent set, a grubby and rickety playground of corrugated steel that represents the outskirts of 1930s Setzuan. Kari Ely delivers a tough and tender performance as Brechtian heroine Shen Te