Thinking Beyond the Box

Following a report of Bertolt Brecht and his theories, we proceeded to discuss The Good Woman of Setzuan. In discussing how we would stage our own productions of the show, we all came back to the idea that Brecht encouraged sets and plots that were unconventional. He believed it was ideal for the audience to become removed from the situation of the play so they could better analyze and sympathize with what was going on. This eventually led us to compare Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan with Sophocles's Oedipus Rex. While Oedipus demonstrates all the qualtities of dramatic theatre, The Good Woman of Setzuan represents the fineries of epic theatre. We definitely took the syle of epic theatre into account when we were asked about how we would stage the show or whether we wanted to reveal to the audience that Shen Te and Shui Ta were the same characters. Everything that we decided upon was rooted in Brecht's theory of the unconventional and estranging the audience. For that we reason, we chose to stage our production in a white three-dimensional box, very similar to what Peter Brook did with his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We thought that the starkness and simplicity of the white box would minimize the audience's attention to the environment so that they could better focus on the message of the play. As a group, we also decided to make it known early on to the audience that Shen Te and Shui Ta were the same characters because Brecht emphasized the awareness of truth. Brecht enjoyed the jumps and swerves of an interesting plot line as opposed to the linear plot lines of dramatic theatre. Somewhat contradictory.