A kind man from Sechuan Taganka Theater. The Good Man from Szechuan

You see, Lyovushka, no matter what happens, the main thing is to be able to remain human.
(E. Radzinsky “104 pages about love”)

He knows how to do this - to be different, new, unexpected, while maintaining his unique author's style, which the Moscow public has passionately and faithfully loved for more than 10 years. This is its distinctive feature. And he does not become cemented, does not ossify in his remarkable skill - somehow he remains alive, light, youthfully desperate and passionate, perhaps even progressing in this from performance to performance. And you can’t create this artificially, it comes from within, from yourself. Yes, probably like this: he creates his performances in his own image and likeness and necessarily breathes into them a part of his soul, in the sense of his own. That's how I feel about it. And from performance to performance, he seems to push the boundaries of his capabilities - easily and confidently - and takes the viewer with him into a new space. He repeats in an interview: “the viewer is a friend and ally.” The emotional exchange with the audience is the final touch, the last layer on each of his works—probably that’s also why we love them so much and are so involved in them. He is completely restless, inexhaustible with energy, ideas and plans. And the theaters are tearing it apart. And I don’t understand how he manages everything and does it in a bright, extraordinary, high-quality and powerful way. He is the best director in the country - Yuri Nikolaevich Butusov.

Just now, in October, at his Lensoveta Theater in St. Petersburg, he released the strongest, absolutely fantastic “Macbeth” (if the performance does not collect a harvest of prizes at the end of the season - honestly, all these prizes are worthless), as in February, in Moscow Pushkin Theater - also unlike anything hitherto in his directorial biography, the most complex and serious work based on Brecht “The Good Man from Szechwan” with marvelous original music by Paul Dessau, a live orchestra “Pure Music” on stage and zongs performed live by artists in German (and since Yuri Nikolaevich is, in a sense, a trendsetter in terms of stage techniques, then expect a series of performances in Moscow in the coming years with authentic music and songs in Japanese, Hungarian, Yagan or Tuyuka). The play itself is very complex and everything inside is in hypertexts, but Yuri Butusov, of course, plowed and overhauled Brecht’s text and sowed it with his own hypertext. Now all this will gradually (this is how all his works affect eyewitnesses) will germinate and emerge in our heads. For now, these are just first superficial impressions.

I almost forgot: artist Alexander Shishkin and choreographer Nikolai Reutov helped him create the performance - that is, there is a full composition of the star team.

Again I have to mention one thing. About my interpretation of the works of this director. I really like to understand them, or rather, I try to do it. His imaginative thinking pushes me into the space of images, but, getting carried away, I can wander somewhere completely wrong. In other words, Yuri Nikolaevich puts on plays about something about his own, and I watch them about something about mine. And I can’t imagine how often we intersect with him, or whether we intersect at all. In general, don't take anything for granted.

So, “The Good Man of Szechwan.” In Brecht's play, socio-political motives are clearly read, which, as they say, was emphasized in the famous (and which I did not see) Yuri Lyubimov's performance at Taganka. Yuri Butusov, to a much greater extent (and traditionally), is occupied with issues relating to the complex and contradictory nature of man, human personality and the characteristics of interpersonal relationships. Strictly speaking, this is the base, the foundation on which it is then built, incl. and the socio-political platform and in general any other one you want. A person with his complex inner world is primary.

On stage, as usual with Yuri Nikolaevich, there is little, but all this is from his “director’s backpack”. MacBett's (Magritte's) door, gray stones-boulders (from Duck Hunt) scattered all over the floor, at the back of the stage there is a dressing room (from The Seagull and Macbeth) - this is the house of Shen Te (who, while waiting for a client, will be dressed in a cloak made of black “polyethylene” - Macbeth - and a black wig from The Seagull), planed boards are piled against the wall (Lear), in the left corner of the stage there is a bed (Macbeth, Richard, Lear, The Seagull), figurines of dogs that look more like wolves (Yuri Nikolaevich’s dogs live almost all performances), on the proscenium there is a small “stool” table; there are chairs everywhere, some overturned (a loose, shaky, rotten world? think about it). Actually, that's all. Before us is a poor quarter of Szechwan, in which the gods are trying to find at least one kind person. Over the almost 4 hours of the performance, the set design will change very little (he knows how to fill the stage with other things: energy, acting, music, riddles), and, of course, every object that appears will not be accidental.
The aesthetics of the performance sends us associations to Foss’s “Cabaret” (in fact, the zongs in German are obviously for the same reason). Parallel. Voss's film shows Germany during the birth of fascism, i.e. on the eve of the world catastrophe, just as on the eve of the catastrophe the Brechtian world froze. At the beginning of the performance, Wang will say harshly and emphatically: “The world CANNOT remain like this any longer if there is not at least one kind person in it.” In the public translation of the play, the phrase sounds different: “The world CAN remain like this if there are enough people worthy of the title of man.” Both phrases are about an unstable balance - that the world has frozen at a dangerous line, beyond which there is an abyss. I don’t know German, I don’t know what the original phrase of the play sounds like, but it’s quite obvious that the second phrase is about the fact that the world is still before the line, and the first – that it’s already a spade, that’s all.
The same boulder stones associatively signal that “the time has come to collect stones” (Book of Ecclesiastes). The expression “time to collect stones,” as an independent expression, is used in the meaning of “time to create,” and in relation to Brecht’s play, I would translate it as “time to change something.” Until it's not too late.
Or the fine sand that the water-carrier Wang will pour first onto the white material on the proscenium, and then onto his own head. This is not sand. Or rather, it is sand for God (sand is a symbol of time, eternity). For Wang, this is rain, water. Yuri Nikolaevich conjures water here, just as he can conjure snow. But now I won’t go into detail about the props; there’s a lot more that needs to be said.

Surprises begin from the first moments of the performance. Yuri Butusov's Brechtian three gods turned into a quiet, silent girl (Anastasia Lebedeva) in a long black coat thrown over sports shorts and a T-shirt. She is an inconspicuous, quiet girl, but the holy fool - the water-carrier Wang - unmistakably recognizes her as the messenger of the Wise, for holy fools are God's people, and how can they not recognize God in the crowd. And while the unfortunate Shen Te courageously tries to bear the overwhelming burden of the mission placed on her shoulders by the gods, Wang watches what is happening and in dialogues (and in fact, monologues) with the gods tries for herself to answer the questions asked by Brecht in the Epilogue of the play, which Yuri Butusov logically omitted it, since these questions are its essence:

Surely there must be some sure way out?
For money you can’t imagine which one!
Another hero? What if the world is different?
Or maybe other gods are needed here?
Or without gods at all?..

As we unwind and comprehend this tangle of questions, Wang’s attitude towards the Gods changes - from blind enthusiastic worship (with kissing feet) through complete disappointment (then he will drag her onto the stage like a sack) to conscious... I can’t find the words... let there be a “partnership”. When disappointment in the gods reaches its limit, Wang begins to speak and behave like an ordinary person (without stuttering, cramped muscles) - as if he refuses to be a man of God. And, perhaps, I’ll adjust my assumption regarding sand. Still, for Wang this is also not water, but sand, a symbol of God. By pouring it on his head at the beginning, he denotes both his closeness to the Wise Ones (like a holy fool) and his unquestioning worship of them.

Yes, here it is also important, in my opinion, why Yuri Nikolaevich deprived the girl-God of almost all words, making her almost mute at times. Whether there is a God or not is a deeply personal, intimate question for each individual person, and that is not what we are talking about here (by the way, Luka in Gorky in “At the Depths” gives a wonderful answer to this question: “If you believe, there is; if you don’t believe, - no. What you believe in is what it is”). Here we are talking about this reciprocal silence. There is great benefit in silence: having reflected from it, the question returns to the one who asked it, and the person begins to deal with it himself, think, analyze, weigh, and draw conclusions. And this is what all the sages and philosophers seem to be talking about: the answers to all questions can be found in yourself. The silence of the girl-God in the play by Yuri Butusov allows Wang to answer the questions that are important to him.
“..if you continue to look within - it takes time - little by little you will begin to feel a beautiful light within. This is not an aggressive light; he is not like the sun, he is more like the moon. It doesn't sparkle, it doesn't blind, it's very cool. He is not hot, he is very compassionate, very softening; it's a balm.
Little by little, when you tune into the inner light, you will see that you yourself are its source. The seeker is the sought. Then you will see that the real treasure is inside you, and the whole problem was that you were looking outside. You were looking somewhere outside, but it was always inside you. It's always been here, inside you." (Osho)

Well, while the finale is still far away, Shen Te, chosen by the gods to be the savior of the world (amazing work by Alexandra Ursulyak), gradually comprehends the bitter truth that if a person wants to live, it is impossible to be ideally kind (and therefore impossible to complete the mission). Kindness that cannot repel evil in order to simply protect itself is doomed (“a predator always knows who is easy prey for him”). And in general it is impossible to be an exemplary bearer of any one quality. If only because (I know this is a banality) everything in the world is relative. For ten people you are kind, and the eleventh will say that you are evil. And everyone will have arguments in favor of their opinion. You can even do nothing at all: neither good nor evil, but there will still be both people who consider you good and people who consider you bad, and, by the way, they can change places. This world is a world of assessments. Subjective momentary assessments that instantly become outdated (I really love this quote from Murakami: “The cells of the body are completely, one hundred percent, renewed every month. We change all the time. Here, even right now. Everything you know about me is no more than your own memories"). Even you yourself don’t know what you really are, because in unforeseen situations you sometimes reveal things you didn’t even suspect about yourself. Or, on the contrary, you were absolutely sure that you would do something, but the moment comes and you remain inactive. Every human action and deed (like every word, even thrown casually, for a word is also an action, moreover, a thought is also an action), like any coin, has two sides, two results opposite in sign.

For example, Shui Ta, wanting to “correct” Sun Yang, gives him the opportunity to work off wasted money and generally find a permanent job and make a career. Noble mission. Good deed. And Song, in fact, gradually becomes the right hand of Shui Ta, but at the same time - a complete beast in relation to other workers, causing nothing but hatred towards himself. And also - he no longer wants to fly, he has lost his “wings”, which breaks the mother’s heart of Mrs. Young, who knows what a first-class pilot her boy is, and remembers how happy he was in the sky, since he was created for him.

I can’t resist.. This is what Chekhov’s “The Black Monk” is about. While Kovrin was not entirely adequate and had conversations with a ghost, he was absolutely happy, believed in his chosenness and indeed showed great promise and was, perhaps, a future genius of science. But his loving wife, frightened by his state of mind, with the best of intentions, put him on pills and took him to the village to drink fresh milk. Kovrin physically recovered, stopped seeing the Black Monk, stopped believing in his chosenness, lost the desire to work, went out, faded and became nothing, no one. What is good and what is evil here? What is normal, what is pathology? Delusions of grandeur grew in a person a great scientist who was able (and eager) to benefit humanity. The woman’s desire to save her beloved husband from illness led to her ruining him.

A person learns about the Law of unity and struggle of opposites in school, before entering the big life. Concepts that are opposite in meaning “go in pairs” - everything is interconnected, interdependent, one cannot exist without the other and is rarely found in its pure form (if found at all). Without its opposite, good is not good and evil is not evil - they are such only against the background of each other. Quote from E. Albee: “I realized that kindness and cruelty on their own, separately from one another, lead to nothing; and at the same time, in combination, they teach you to feel.” And no matter how you weigh the facts or subject them to spectral analysis, when assessing something, you will almost certainly make a mistake, not in general, but in particular. We live in a world of misunderstanding and delusion and persist in it. “Do not rush to judge and do not rush to despair” - the translation of a phrase from one of the zongs will appear on the electronic line.
There are no perfectly good people on earth. And in general there are no ideal people, and if there were - what a melancholy it would be to be among them (on this topic - a person getting into some ideal space according to his ideas - a lot of things have been written and filmed. It’s really scary). And in vain the tired God - a quiet girl in worn-out shoes - wanders the earth in search of an ideally kind person (on stage she will walk on a treadmill and ride a bicycle - this is all about her search). Her legs were wiped bloody (already in her first appearance), then she was barely alive (in Brecht’s text, “good people” gave one of the Gods a bruise under the eye, and this girl-God has bloody bandages on her arms, head, neck , belly) Wang will drag her to the front of the stage, and for the third time he will carry her out completely lifeless. God himself could not survive in the world, which he ordered to live according to his, divine, rules. People mutilated God, abused him (in the play - not knowing that this is God (the townspeople don’t recognize her at the beginning), but the deeper meaning is that people don’t need such a God with his commandments, is beyond their strength), and God died. And Wang contemptuously throws a handful of sand on the lifeless body, uttering a phrase that in the original play belongs to one of the gods (I use a publicly available translation of the play, and for the play YN specially translated the play again by Yegor Peregudov):

“Your commandments are destructive. I'm afraid all the rules of morality that you have established must be crossed out. People have enough worries to at least save their lives. Good intentions bring them to the brink, but good deeds bring them down.”

Why is God a girl here? (I'm just guessing). Here it is necessary to summarize and name by name what I have been unnamed for a long time above in the text. In “The Good Man from Szechwan” (as in “The Black Monk”) one of the main themes is the theme of duality (of man, phenomena, concepts, etc.). Yuri Butusov loves this theme very much - it sounds in all his works. Moreover, this term has many meanings, but for us, as non-specialists, the most understandable (conditionally) is direct and reverse duality. Those. in one case - a copy, in the other - the opposite, the reverse, the shadow side. If you look closely, almost every character in the play has a double. And even more than one. Such a mirror labyrinth of doubles. (Yuri Nikolaevich again drew such a clever pattern inside the performance - I can’t recognize everything). I didn’t keep track of the video sequence well (you get carried away by the action and forget to keep your nose to the wind) - / the back wall of the stage, as well as the light curtain falling onto the proscenium from above from time to time, act as a screen - the video projector creates a video sequence on them / - but two almost-twin prostitutes (in black dresses, black glasses) against the background of an image of two little twin girls (sad and smiling; I remember this photo of Diana Arbus - Identical Twins. And here they are, pairs of antagonists: childhood - adulthood; innocence - vice ; joy and sadness.
More. I wondered why Alexander Arsentiev’s (Sung Yang) eyes were lined with red. Red eyes.. “Here comes my mighty enemy, the devil. I see his terrible crimson eyes...” And then - “Elegy” by Brodsky.” Yes, this is "The Seagull". Former pilot Sun Yang is a “mail line pilot” who “alone, like a fallen angel, chugs down vodka.” Fallen angel, Lucifer. Sun Yang's eyes are the red eyes of Lucifer, which the World Soul speaks of in Nina Zarechnaya's monologue. And then Lucifer’s dance with God is also about duality. And about the struggle and interaction of the Light and Dark principles in man. And these are Yang and Yin in the Eastern symbol, in which each of the concepts carries within itself the grain of its opposite. One gives rise to another and itself comes from this other.. And this is life (a red balloon, symbolizing first sparkling wine in a glass of Sun, and then “turning” into the belly of Shen Te and the God girl, although one became pregnant from her loved one , and the other was probably raped). And if we further develop the theme of Sun’s Luciferism: after all, he (again conditionally) competes with God in the right to a Good Man, manipulates what for a woman is the energy of life, love. In general, Shen Te found herself in that very monstrous situation when everyone needs something FROM you, but no one cares about you. Her only friend, Wang, again, trying to help her, eventually exposed her and declassified her secret. Throughout the entire play, no one asks her herself: how she feels, what she thinks, what she feels, whether she feels good or bad. In fact, only God talks to her about her (the entire scene of the dialogue between Shen Te and Mrs. Shin on the eve of Shen Te’s arrest was rewritten by Yuri Butusov under Shen Te and God, “I’ll be there when this happens,” God says to Shen Te, this about childbirth, but you need to understand this much more broadly).
More about doubles: Shen Te with her unborn son, Mrs. Yang with her son, Mi Ju’s double (when she is dressed in black and cradles a birch log wrapped in a blanket). Yes, in fact, we are all mirrors and doubles of each other.
And I didn’t finish talking about God the Girl. The main and obvious pair of doubles in the play, of course, are Shen Te and Shui Ta (for such a double, which is hidden in the person himself, Wikipedia suggested a sonorous German word - Doppelganger). But towards the end, when Shen Te is already 7 months pregnant (and when she has long been in the “guise” of her brother, “godfather” and tobacco king Shui Ta), she looks in the mirror, and her reflection in the mirror is a girl- God with the same 7-month belly. Before Shen Tie decides to take advantage of his brother for the last time, the God Girl will be dressed as Shui Ta (Shen Tie told her to do this). She, the girl-God, will build on the floor either a Chinese hieroglyph (which one?), or a house from empty cigarette packs that rained indifferently on her head. Shen Te, aka Shui Ta, the Godfather and the tobacco king, was God in her tobacco kingdom, established her own rules there, introduced her own regulations.. In general, the same scenario as the Gods with their rules and regulations for the world in general (recursion. the process of repeating elements in a self-similar manner). And everything is destroyed: the world that God built, and the tobacco empire that Shui Ta created.
Now a beautiful phrase came to mind: this performance is about God’s search for Man and Man’s search for God. Both girls, through torment and suffering, come to the conclusion that something needs to be changed in the “regulations of interaction” between God and Man.

Brecht left the ending of the play open - questions remained unanswered. But Yuri Nikolaevich, even despite Shen Te’s call for help, still made the ending closed and giving hope, offering his own version of the answer to the question “what to do.” A wonderful final scene (again - as I heard it, maybe I misspoke), in which poor Shen Te begs the gods to allow her to become cruel Shui Ta at least once a week: the girl-God, smiling softly, will allow (not wave away in horror with this permission, as if not wanting to hear anything, like Brecht’s gods, but will say calmly and consciously): “Don’t abuse it. Once a month will be enough.” Yuri Nikolaevich wisely did not remake this world (for we ourselves create the reality around us, these are the fruits of our own labors and beliefs, and not someone else’s, and if they are “someone’s”, and we continue to live in them, then they they just suit us too (“if you’re unlucky today, it’s okay, you’ll be lucky tomorrow; if you’re unlucky tomorrow, it’s okay, you’ll be lucky the day after tomorrow; if you’re unlucky the day after tomorrow, it means you just like it better”); yes, we will return everything back anyway); did not change the hero, because Shen Te is, in fact, perhaps the best specimen of the human race; did not abolish gods (and everything that can be included in a group with such a general name, i.e., both internal and external concepts) in general, because, alas, without any restraining factors at all, a person very quickly gets loose, plunging the world around him into chaos, and this is a direct path to self-destruction. Yuri Butusov changed - Resolution. His God softened his demands on man, lowered the prohibitively high bar, allowing man, within much wider boundaries, to be what he is by nature: different - good, bad, kind, evil, strong, weak, etc. And such a God is acceptable to Wang - they will leave holding hands.

This is probably Yuri Butusov’s “message” to this world, which is now also dangerously approaching the line:
“Man, be a man, with all your human weaknesses, flaws and imperfections, but still try to be a Man, then this world still has a chance to be saved.”
“You can do it, Shen Te. The main thing is to remain kind.”

You probably shouldn’t love all of Humanity, it’s very abstract and useless. You can focus on a narrower circle, for example, on those who are nearby. And if there is an opportunity to do something that will help someone else or at least just make him happy, why not do it? Sometimes just listening is enough. Such trifles and trifles can make a person happy - I am surprised every time, including myself. People are now terribly separated, distanced from each other, have lost mutual trust, are closed in on themselves, the main nature of contacts is mutual use of each other.
Life is difficult - it’s all true, but if you observe, it is precisely those for whom life is most difficult, or who themselves have experienced something terrible, for some reason who are most capable of compassion and sympathy for others. When in the summer they collected help for the Krasnodar drowned people everywhere, retired grandmothers brought their old, worn things to the collection points. It's not a matter of timing. “These are the times.” The times are always the same (“Do not say: How did it happen that the former days were better than these? For you did not ask this out of wisdom.” - Book of Ecclesiastes). There is something wrong with ourselves.
(Abstracting from the inconsistency and ambiguity of concepts and using the usual understanding of terms): good, like evil, has a chain reaction (motorists know: if you let someone go ahead of you on the road, then, as a rule, he will soon also let someone go ahead of him ). I repeat: life is a difficult thing, but while we are here, we have to live it somehow. In a world where there are more “good chains”, life is easier.
The heroine Doronina in the film “Once Again About Love” sent postcards to all her friends for the holidays: “People are pleased when they are remembered. There is not much warmth in life. Last New Year I sent 92 cards.”

And the last quote. Chekhov, "Gooseberry":
- Pavel Konstantinich! - said [Ivan Ivanovich] in a pleading voice. - Don’t calm down, don’t let yourself be lulled to sleep! While you are young, strong, vigorous, do not get tired of doing good! There is no happiness and there should not be, and if there is meaning and purpose in life, then this meaning and purpose is not at all in our happiness, but in something more reasonable and greater. Do good!

Bertolt Brecht

Good man from Sichuan

Parabolic play

In collaboration with R. Berlau and M. Steffin

Translation by E. Ionova and Yu. Yuzovsky

Poems translated by Boris Slutsky

CHARACTERS

Van is a water bearer.

Three gods.

Yang Song is an unemployed pilot.

Mrs. Yang is his mother.

Widow Shin.

Family of eight.

Joiner Lin To.

Homeowner Mi Ju.

Police officer.

Carpet dealer.

His wife.

Old prostitute.

Barber Shu Fu.

Waiter.

Unemployed.

Passers-by in the prologue.

Setting: the semi-Europeanized capital of Sichuan.

Sichuan Province, which summarized all the places on the globe where

man exploits man; now he does not belong to such places.

A street in the main city of Sichuan. Evening. Water Carrier Wang introduces himself to the audience.

Wang. I am a local water carrier - I sell water in the capital of Sichuan. Hard craft! If there is little water, you have to go far to get it. And if there is a lot of it, the income is small. In general, there is great poverty in our province. Everyone says that if anyone else can help us, it’s the gods. And imagine my joy when a cattle trader I knew - he travels a lot - told me that several of our most prominent gods were already on their way and could be expected in Sichuan any hour now. They say that heaven is very worried about the many complaints that it receives. It’s already the third day that I’ve been waiting here at the city gates, especially in the evening, to be the first to greet the guests. Later it is unlikely that I will be able to do this. They will be surrounded by high-ranking gentlemen, try to get through to them then. How can you recognize them? They will probably not appear together. Most likely one at a time, so as not to draw too much attention to yourself. These ones don’t look like gods, they are returning from work. (Looks carefully at the workers passing by.) Their shoulders are bent from the weights they are carrying. And this one? What a god he is - his fingers are covered in ink. At most, an employee of a cement plant. Even those two gentlemen...

Two men pass by.

And those, in my opinion, are not gods. They have a cruel expression on their faces, like people who are used to hitting, and the gods have no need for this. But there are three! It's like it's a different matter. Well-fed, not the slightest sign of any activity, shoes covered in dust, which means they came from afar. They are them! O wise ones, dispose of me! (Falls on his face.)

First God (joyfully). Are they waiting for us here?

Van (gives them something to drink). A long time ago. But I was the only one who knew about your arrival.

The first god. We need an overnight stay. Do you know where we could settle down?

Wang. Where? Everywhere! The whole city is at your disposal, O wise ones! Where would you like?

The gods look at each other meaningfully.

The first god. At least in the nearest house, my son! We'll try as soon as possible!

Wang. My only concern is that I will incur the wrath of those in power if I give special preference to one of them.

The first god. That is why we order you: start with the nearest one!

Wang. Mister Fo lives there! Wait a minute. (Runs up to the house and knocks on the door.)

The door opens, but it is clear that Van is refused.

(He timidly returns.) What a failure! Mr. Fo, as luck would have it, is not at home, and the servants do not decide on anything without his orders, the owner is very strict! Well, he’ll be furious when he finds out who wasn’t accepted into his house, won’t he?

Gods (smiling). Undoubtedly.

Wang. One more minute! The house next door belongs to Su's widow. She will be overjoyed. (Runs to the house, but, apparently, is refused again.) I’ll do better on the contrary. The widow says that she has only one small room, and it is not in order. I’ll turn to Mr. Chen now.

Second god. A small room is enough for us. Tell her we'll take her.

Wang. Even if it's not tidy, even if it's full of spiders?

Second god. Nonsense! Where there are spiders, there are few flies.

Third god (friendly, Vanu). Go to Mr. Chen or somewhere else, my son, I must admit, I don’t like spiders.

Van knocks on a door again and is let in.

Wang (returning to the gods). Mr. Chen is in despair, his house is full of relatives, and he does not dare to appear before your eyes, the wisest ones. Between us, I think there are bad people among them, and he doesn’t want you to see them. He is afraid of your anger. That's the whole point.

Third god. Are we that scary?

Wang. Only for unkind people, isn't it? It is known that the residents of Kwan province have been suffering from floods for decades - God's punishment!

Second god. How's that? Why?

Wang. Yes, because they are all atheists.

Second god. Nonsense! Simply because they didn't fix the dam.

The first god. Shh! (To Van). Do you still hope, my son?

Wang. How can you even ask such a thing? Just go one more house and I will find you a place to live. Each one licks his own fingers in anticipation that he will host you. Unfortunate coincidence, you know? I'm running! (He walks away slowly and stops hesitantly in the middle of the street.)

Second god. What did I say?

Third god. Still, I think this is a simple coincidence.

Second god. Chance in Shun, chance in Kwan and chance in Sichuan. There is no more fear of God on earth - this is the truth that you are afraid to face. Admit that our mission has failed!

The first god. We may yet come across a kind person. Any minute now. We shouldn't give up right away.

Third god. The decree stated: the world can remain as it is if there are enough people worthy of the title of man. Waterbearer himself is such a person, unless I am deceived. (Approaches Van, who is still indecisive.)

Second god. He is being deceived. When the water bearer gave us a drink from his mug, I noticed something. Here's the mug. (Shows it to the first god.)

The first god. Double bottom.

Second god. Scammer!

The first god. Okay, it's gone. So what's wrong with one with foulbrood? We will also meet those who are capable of living a life worthy of a human being. We must find! The cry has not stopped for two millennia; it cannot continue like this! No one in this world is able to be kind! We must finally point to people who can follow our commandments.

Bertolt Brecht

Philosophical parable play

Translation from German Yu. Yuzovsky And E. Ionova, poetry in translation B. Slutsky
Director - Yuri Lyubimov
Music - Anatoly Vasiliev, Boris Khmelnitsky

“The Good Man of Sezhuana” is our first performance, the Taganka Theater began with it. It has become a symbol and talisman of the Theatre, has not left the stage for more than half a century, and this unusually long life of the performance continues not because we protect it as a talisman. Yuri Lyubimov never held on to a performance if he considered it irrelevant, outdated, if the audience stopped understanding and perceiving it (although this was not the case in his work).

So, the play about kindness is dedicated to the affirmation of kindness - an innate, according to Brecht, human property.

The gods descended to earth and unsuccessfully searched for at least one good person. We must find it, if they don’t find it, then this world is not worth existing. And finally they find the prostitute Shen Te, a man who cannot say no.

Brecht believed that there are human categories that can be depicted and explained only in the form of myth, symbol, in the genre of parable plays. Such is the immanent and irresistible kindness of the heroine - Shen Te. But where will it lead her, is it even possible to embody kindness in the world around us, what does the duality of the soul mean and why does it exist, how a person is forced to defend himself - these are the questions the author of the play and the performance are trying to answer or ask.

On stage, positions and characters are known to everyone, almost everyday, instantly recognizable. And the gods are actually a funny trinity in modern suits, looking for a place to stay for the night. And these are the gods who will decide the fate of the world, in which - we will see - what is destruction for man and what is salvation.

Discovering the dramaturgy of Brecht, Lyubimov was looking for special techniques for working with artists - they learned to talk to the public, because Brecht has provisions when the author is very important the position of the actor outside the image, his own attitude to reality, the actor at this time leaves the image, leaving it aside. These principles of Brechtian theater were to Lyubimov’s gut and should, in his opinion, broaden the horizons of both the artist and the viewer, make him think and understand something around him. Subsequently, they took a strong place in the artistic concept of the Taganka Theater, outlining its aesthetic space and way of conversation with the audience, as well as the choice of topics - the human heart, soul, relationships with the world, love... And then, in the 60s - the years of unfulfilled hopes , I was generally amazed by the very presence of this conversation, which was not accepted in other theaters. The audience gets involved in the action, they don’t just watch the performance, experience and empathize, but participate.

In this performance, no one pretends to be anyone, no one is led by the nose, no one is lectured. Everything here is conditional and everything is real. After all, the art of theater is not an approach to life and not a feigned imitation of it, but a different, meaningful, newly created, moreover, an artistic canvas created right before our eyes.

Conventionality on stage turns into absolute authenticity, perceived directly. Metaphor overrides any similarity, affects feelings, and the action is direct. Wonderful gods, a tree made of slats, a factory is depicted with clapping hands, and the soul is torn into its two irreconcilable and inseparable parts, and all this evokes the most real feelings and thoughts, and compassion, and tears, and fear.

Characters and performers:

1st GOD - Alexey Grabbe
2nd GOD - Erwin Haase / Alexander Margolin
3rd GOD - Nikita Luchikhin
SHEN TE - SHUI TA - Maria Matveeva / Galina Volodina
YANG SUN, unemployed pilot - Ivan Ryzhikov
MADAME SONG, his mother - Larisa Maslova
WANG, water bearer - Vladislav Malenko / Dmitry Vysotsky
SHU FU, barber - Timur Badalbeyli / Igor Pekhovich
MI TCI, landlady - Anastasia Kolpikova / Margaret Radzig
MRS SHIN - Tatiana Sidorenko
POLICE OFFICER - Konstantin Lyubimov
LIN TO, carpenter - Sergey Tsimbalenko
WIFE - Polina Nechitailo
HUSBAND - Sergey Trifonov
BROTHER WUNG - Alexander Fursenko
BRIDE - Ekaterina Ryabushinskaya
GRANDFATHER - Victor Semenov / Roman Staburov / Igor Pekhovich
BOY - Alla Smirdan / Alexandra Basova
NIECE -
NEPHEW - Alexander Fursenko (Jr.)
CARPET DEALER - Sergey Ushakov
HIS WIFE - Yulia Kuvarzina / Marfa Koltsova
UNEMPLOYED - Philip Kotov / Sergey Tsimbalenko
OLD PROSTITUTE - Tatiana Sidorenko
YOUNG PROSTITUTE - Marfa Koltsova / Yulia Stozharova
PRIEST - Alexander Fursenko (Jr.)
MUSICIANS - Anatoly Vasiliev, Mikhail Lukin

I made a post from pieces, excerpts from books and articles. When you put together the puzzles of text and video, I hope that you will feel the atmosphere of the theater, or rather of one very interesting performance, this is exactly what I wanted to express in my post:

During Brecht's lifetime, his relationship with the Soviet theater was, to put it mildly, not particularly successful. The main reasons were the official theater’s ideological rejection of Brecht’s artistic quest, as well as the paradoxical figure of Brecht, who greatly irritated the authorities. The dislike was mutual. On the one hand, in the 1920s–1950s, domestic theaters hardly staged Brecht’s plays. On the other hand, the German playwright’s own acquaintance with Soviet theatrical practice more than once plunged him into despondency.

Brecht found himself in the Soviet chalk circle. Only at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, after his death, rare productions of his plays appeared. Among the first and most significant it should be mentioned: “The Dreams of Simone Machar” at the Moscow Theater. M. Ermolova, directed by Anatoly Efros (1959); “Mother Courage and Her Children” at the Moscow Academic Theater. Vl. Mayakovsky (production by Maxim Strauch) (1960); “The Good Man from Szechwan” at the Leningrad Academic Theater. Pushkin (1962, director – Rafail Suslovich); “The Career of Arturo Ui” at the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater. Gorky (1963, director – Erwin Axer).

However, these and some other Brecht Thaw productions pale in comparison to the significance of one educational student performance. In 1963, young Vakhtangov students, third (!) year students of the B.V. Theater School. Shchukin, presented the fruit of their six-month work - the play “The Good Man from Szechwan” staged by the course teacher Yuri Lyubimov.

His success was stunning. In the last year of the thaw, in the small hall of the Shchukin school on Old Arbat (later it was played on other stage venues in Moscow), the performance was watched by I. Erenburg, K. Simonov, A. Voznesensky, E. Evtushenko, B. Okudzhava, B. Akhmadulina, V. Aksenov, Y. Trifonov, A. Galich, O. Efremov, M. Plisetskaya, R. Shchedrin... It would seem that another student production was perceived by the Moscow public not only as a theatrical breakthrough, but also as a kind of social manifesto , a banner that promised changing times. It is very symptomatic that a year later, on April 23, 1964, Lyubimov’s “The Good Man from Szechwan” will open a new theater - the Taganka Theater, where it continues to this day.
(Excerpt from an article about Brecht’s work.)

Moscow is an amazing city - everyone there knows everything by rumors. Rumors spread that some interesting performance was being prepared. And since everyone is bored, and diplomats too, if something is interesting, it means there will be a scandal. As my late friend Erdman said, “if there is no scandal around a theater, then it is not a theater.” So, in this sense, he was a prophet in relation to me. And so it was. Well, it’s boring, and everyone wants to come and see, and they know that if it’s interesting, it will be closed. Therefore, it took a long time for the performance to begin; the audience rushed into the hall. These diplomats sat down on the floor in the passage, a fireman ran in, a pale director, the rector of the school, said that “he won’t allow it, because the hall might collapse.” In the hall, where there are seats for two hundred and forty people, there are about four hundred sitting - in general, there was a complete scandal. I stood with a flashlight - the electrics there were very bad, and I myself stood and moved the flashlight. Brecht's portrait was highlighted in the right places. And I kept driving this lantern and shouting:

For God's sake, let the performance continue, what are you doing, because they will close the performance, no one will see it! Why are you stomping around, don’t you understand where you live, you idiots!

And yet I calmed them down. But, of course, everything was recorded and reported. Well, they closed it after that.
Excerpt from Yuri Lyubimov's book "Stories of an Old Talker"

"The Good Man from Sichuan" Bertolt Brecht (German: Der gute Mensch von Sezuan) · 1940
Brief summary of the play (for those who don’t know what it’s all about)))

The main city of Sichuan Province, which summarizes all the places on the globe and any time in which man exploits man, is the place and time of the play.

Prologue. For two millennia now the cry has not stopped: this cannot continue! No one in this world is able to be kind! And the concerned gods decreed: the world can remain as it is if there are enough people capable of living a life worthy of a person. And to check this, the three most prominent gods descend to earth. Perhaps the water-carrier Wang, who was the first to meet them and treat them to water (by the way, he is the only one in Sichuan who knows that they are gods), is a worthy person? But his mug, the gods noticed, had a double bottom. The good water-carrier is a swindler! The simplest test of the first virtue - hospitality - upsets them: in none of the rich houses: neither Mr. Fo, nor Mr. Chen, nor the widow Su - can Wang find lodging for them for the night. There is only one thing left: turn to the prostitute Shen De, because she cannot refuse anyone. And the gods spend the night with the only kind person, and the next morning, having said goodbye, they leave Shen De an order to remain just as kind, as well as a good payment for the night: after all, how can one be kind when everything is so expensive!

I. The gods left Shen De a thousand silver dollars, and she bought herself a small tobacco shop with them. But how many people in need of help turn out to be next to those who were lucky: the former owner of the shop and the previous owners of Shen De - husband and wife, her lame brother and pregnant daughter-in-law, nephew and niece, old grandfather and boy - and everyone needs a roof over their heads and food. “The little boat of salvation / Immediately goes to the bottom. / After all, too many drowning people / Grabbed the sides greedily.”

And then the carpenter demands one hundred silver dollars, which the previous owner did not pay him for the shelves, and the landlady needs recommendations and a guarantee for the not very respectable Shen De. “My cousin will vouch for me,” she says. “And he will pay for the shelves.”

II. And the next morning, Shoi Da, Shen De’s cousin, appears in the tobacco shop. Having decisively driven away the unlucky relatives, skillfully forcing the carpenter to take only twenty silver dollars, prudently making friends with the policeman, he settles the affairs of his too kind cousin.

III. And in the evening, in the city park, Shen De meets the unemployed pilot Sun. A pilot without a plane, a postal pilot without mail. What in the world should he do, even if he read all the books about flying in Beijing school, even if he knows how to land a plane, as if it were his own ass? He is like a crane with a broken wing and has nothing to do on earth. The rope is at the ready, and there are as many trees as you like in the park. But Shen De does not allow him to hang himself. To live without hope is to do evil. The song of the water carrier selling water during the rain is hopeless: “Thunder rumbles and rain pours, / Well, I sell water, / But the water is not sold / And it is not drunk at all. / I shout: “Buy water!” / But no one buys. / Nothing gets into my pocket for this water! / Buy some water, dogs!”

And Shen De buys a mug of water for his beloved Yang Song.

Vladimir Vysotsky and Zinaida Slavina in the play “The Good Man from Szechwan”. 1978

IV. Returning after a night spent with her beloved, Shen De sees for the first time the morning city, cheerful and giving joy. People are kind today. The old carpet merchants from the shop opposite give dear Shen De a loan of two hundred silver dollars - this will be enough to pay the landlady for six months. Nothing is difficult for a person who loves and hopes. And when Sun’s mother Mrs. Yang says that for the huge sum of five hundred silver dollars her son was promised a place, she happily gives her the money she received from the old people. But where to get another three hundred? There is only one way out - turn to Shoy Da. Yes, he is too cruel and cunning. But a pilot must fly!

Sideshows. Shen De enters, holding a mask and a Shoi Da costume in his hands, and sings “The Song about the Helplessness of Gods and Good People”: “The good ones in our country / cannot remain good. / To reach the cup with a spoon, / You need cruelty. / The good are helpless, and the gods are powerless. / Why don’t the gods declare there, in the ether, / That it’s time to give all the good and the good / The opportunity to live in a good, kind world?”

V. Smart and prudent Shoi Da, whose eyes are not blinded by love, sees deception. Yang Song is not afraid of cruelty and meanness: let the place promised to him be someone else’s, and the pilot who will be fired from it has a large family, let Shen De part with the shop, except for which she has nothing, and the old people will lose their two hundred dollars and lose their home , - just to achieve his goal. This cannot be trusted, and Shoi Da seeks support in a rich barber who is ready to marry Shen De. But the mind is powerless where love operates, and Shen De leaves with Sun: “I want to leave with the one I love, / I don’t want to think about whether it’s good. / I don't want to know if he loves me. / I want to leave with the one I love.”

VI. In a small cheap restaurant in the suburbs, preparations are being made for the wedding of Yang Song and Shen De. The bride in a wedding dress, the groom in a tuxedo. But the ceremony still does not begin, and the boss looks at his watch - the groom and his mother are waiting for Shoi Da, who should bring three hundred silver dollars. Yang Song sings “The Song of Saint Never’s Day”: “On this day evil is taken by the throat, / On this day all the poor are lucky, / Both the owner and the farmhand / Walk together to the tavern / On Saint Never’s day / The skinny one drinks at the fat one’s house.” . / We can’t wait any longer. / That’s why they should give us, / People of hard work, / The Day of Saint Never, / The Day of Saint Never, / The Day when we rest.”

“He will never come again,” says Mrs. Yang. Three are sitting, and two of them are looking at the door.

VII. Shen De's meager belongings were on the cart near the tobacco shop - the shop had to be sold in order to repay the debt to the old people. The barber Shu Fu is ready to help: he will give his barracks to the poor people whom Shen De helps (you can’t keep goods there anyway - it’s too damp), and write a check. And Shen De is happy: she felt in herself a future son - a pilot, “a new conqueror / Of inaccessible mountains and unknown regions!” But how to protect him from the cruelty of this world? She sees the carpenter's little son looking for food in a garbage can, and swears that she will not rest until she saves her son, at least him alone. It's time to turn into a cousin again.

Mr. Shoi Da announces to those gathered that his cousin will not leave them without help in the future, but from now on the distribution of food without reciprocal services will stop, and those who agree to work for Shen De will live in the houses of Mr. Shu Fu.

VIII. The tobacco factory that Shoi Da set up in the barracks employs men, women and children. The taskmaster - and cruel - here is Yang Song: he is not at all saddened by the change in fate and shows that he is ready to do anything for the sake of the interests of the company. But where is Shen De? Where is the good man? Where is she who many months ago, on a rainy day, in a moment of joy, bought a mug of water from the water carrier? Where is she and her unborn child that she told the water-carrier about? And Sun would also like to know this: if his ex-fiancee was pregnant, then he, as the father of the child, can claim the position of owner. And here, by the way, is her dress in the knot. Didn't a cruel cousin kill the unfortunate woman? The police come to the house. Mr. Scheu Da will have to appear in court.

X. In the courtroom, Shen De's friends (water carrier Wang, the old couple, grandfather and niece) and Shoi Da's partners (Mr. Shu Fu and the landlady) are waiting for the hearing to begin. At the sight of the judges entering the hall, Shoi Da faints - these are gods. The gods are by no means omniscient: under the mask and costume of Shoi Da, they do not recognize Shen De. And only when, unable to withstand the accusations of the good and the intercession of the evil, Shoi Da takes off his mask and tears off his clothes, the gods see with horror that their mission has failed: their good man and the evil and callous Shoi Da are one person. It’s impossible in this world to be kind to others and at the same time to yourself, you can’t save others and not destroy yourself, you can’t make everyone happy and yourself together with everyone! But the gods have no time to understand such complexities. Is it really possible to abandon the commandments? No never! Recognize that the world needs to change? How? By whom? No, everything is okay. And they reassure people: “Shen De did not die, she was only hidden. There remains a good person among you.” And to Shen De’s desperate cry: “But I need a cousin,” they hastily answer: “Just not too often!” And while Shen De desperately stretches out his hands to them, they, smiling and nodding, disappear above.

Epilogue. The actor’s final monologue before the audience: “Oh, my honorable audience! The ending is unimportant. I know this. / In our hands, the most beautiful fairy tale suddenly received a bitter denouement. / The curtain is down, and we stand in confusion - the questions have not been resolved. / So what's the deal? We are not looking for benefits, / And that means there must be some sure way out? / You can’t imagine what for money! Another hero? What if the world is different? / Or maybe other gods are needed here? Or without gods at all? I am silent in alarm. / So help us! Correct the trouble - direct your thought and mind here. / Try to find good ways for good. / Bad ending - discarded in advance. / He must, must, must be good!”

Retold by T. A. Voznesenskaya.

"The Good Man from Sichuan"(translation option: "The Good Man from Szechwan", German Der gute Mensch von Sezuan listen)) is a parabolic play by Bertolt Brecht, completed in 1941 in Finland, one of the most striking embodiments of his theory of epic theater.

History of creation

The play, originally entitled "Die Ware Liebe", was conceived in 1930; the sketch to which Brecht returned early in 1939 in Denmark contained five scenes. In May of the same year, already in Swedish Liding, the first version of the play was completed; however, two months later its radical redesign began. On June 11, 1940, Brecht wrote in his diary: “Once again, together with Greta, word by word, I am reviewing the text of The Good Man from Sichuan.” Only in April 1941, already in Finland, did he state that the play finished . Originally conceived as a domestic drama, the play eventually took the form of a dramatic legend.

The first production of “The Good Man from Szechuan” was carried out by Leongard Steckel in Zurich, the premiere took place on February 4, 1943. In the playwright's homeland, Germany, the play was first staged in 1952 by Harry Bukvitsa in Frankfurt am Main.

In Russian, “A Good Man from Sichuan” was first published in 1957 in the journal “Foreign Literature” translated by E. Ionova and Yu. Yuzovsky, the poems were translated by Boris Slutsky.

Characters

Van - water bearer
Three gods
Shen Te
Shui Ta
Young Sun - unemployed pilot
Mrs. Yang is his mother
Widow Shin
Family of eight
Carpenter Lin To
Landlady Mi Ju
Police officer
Carpet dealer
His wife
Old prostitute
Barber Shu Fu
Bonze
Waiter
Unemployed
Passersby in the prologue

Plot

The gods who descended to earth are unsuccessfully looking for a good person. In the main city of Sichuan province, with the help of the water carrier Wang, they try to find accommodation for the night, but are refused everywhere - only the prostitute Shen Te agrees to shelter them.

To make it easier for the girl to remain kind, the gods, leaving Shen Te's house, give her some money - with this money she buys a small tobacco shop.

But people unceremoniously take advantage of Shen Te’s kindness: the more good she does, the more trouble she brings upon herself. Things are going from bad to worse - in order to save her shop from ruin, Shen Te, who does not know how to say “no,” dresses in men's clothes and introduces herself as her cousin, Mr. Shui Ta, tough and unsentimental. He is not kind, he refuses everyone who turns to him for help, but, unlike Shen Te, his “brother” is doing well.

Forced callousness weighs heavily on Shen Te - having improved matters, she “returns” and meets the unemployed pilot Yang Sun, who is ready to hang himself out of despair. Shen Te saves a pilot from a noose and falls in love with him; Inspired by love, she, as before, refuses to help anyone. However, Yang Sun also uses her kindness as a weakness. He needs five hundred silver dollars to get a pilot’s position in Beijing, such money cannot be obtained even from the sale of a shop, and Shen Te, in order to accumulate the required amount, again turns into the hard-hearted Shui Ta. Yang Song, in a conversation with his “brother,” speaks contemptuously about Shen Te, whom, as it turns out, he does not intend to take with him to Beijing, and Shui Ta refuses to sell the shop, as the pilot demands.

Disappointed in her beloved, Shen Te decides to marry a wealthy city dweller Shu Fu, who is ready to do charity work to please her, but after taking off the Shui Ta costume, she loses the ability to refuse - and Yang Sun easily convinces the girl to become his wife.

However, just before the wedding, Yang Sun learns that Shen Te cannot sell the shop: it is partially mortgaged for $200, long ago given to the pilot. Yang Sun counts on Shui Ta's help, sends for him and, while waiting for his “brother,” postpones the wedding. Shui Ta does not come, and the guests invited to the wedding, having drunk all the wine, leave.

Shen Te, in order to pay off the debt, has to sell the shop that served as her home - no husband, no shop, no shelter. And Shui Ta appears again: having accepted material assistance from Shu Fu, which Shen Te refused, he forces numerous parasites to work for Shen Te and eventually opens a small tobacco factory. Young Sun eventually gets a job at this rapidly growing factory and, as an educated person, quickly makes a career.

Six months pass, Shen Te’s absence worries both the neighbors and Mr. Shu Fu; Yang Sun tries to blackmail Shui Ta in order to take over the factory, and, having failed to achieve his goal, brings the police to Shui Ta's house. After finding Shen Te's clothes in the house, the policeman accuses Shui Ta of murdering his cousin. The gods undertake to judge him. Shen Te reveals her secret to the gods and asks them to tell her how to live next, but the gods, pleased that they have found their good man, without giving an answer, fly away on a pink cloud.