Review by Neal Newman
April 7, 2024
Wilma Theater’s THE GOOD PERSON OF SETZUAN offers much to admire and many challenges for the audience.
Bi Jean Ngo’s performance in the title role is foremost. She illuminates the stage. Bertolt Brecht’s play is the tale of a person who wants to do good in a world filled with crooked and often evil conspirators. Since the good Shen Te can’t succeed in this society, she disguises herself as the worldly, actively corrupt male Shui Ta who finds cruel ways to navigate the evils of society. Brecht’s theme is obvious and stated early on. “If you want to succeed in anything, be prepared to break heads.” Or as Brecht translator Marc Blitzstein put it: “First feed the face and then talk right and wrong.”
Shen Te is a prostitute forced into the profession by hard times. The gods recognize her goodness and arrange for her to receive a small sum of money, which she uses to purchase a tiny shop. That’s where her troubles begin as sharpers and wastrels descend to take advantage of her goodness. Such a story needs a bright light of shining charisma in this sea of iniquity, and Bi Jean Ngo truly has it. She is not the fat, cigar-smoking boor one imagines as Shui Ta, but she does well, bringing the play’s themes to exciting life.
One is also struck by the setting of Steven Dufala, which begins with a multicolored curtain made of cheap shirts and underclothes. It rises to reveal a brightly colored world made exclusively of trash. It’s a two-storied concoction that features modern plastics, old furniture, and many other oddities that illustrate the world of poverty and desperation Brecht calls for. The back wall of the playhouse is seen. There are no wing curtains or tormentors to hide the lighting. The cast is seen in the wings awaiting cues. The costumes assist the performers as they quickly change into many characters. Costumer Ariel Wang and Director Justin Jain avoid any MIKADO style “oriental” cliches. Some outfits suggest China, but others do not. Lighting Designer Krista Smith keeps it simple with plain white light and a few flashes of color in the second half.
The adaptation from a translation by Wendy Arons is by famed writer/adaptor Tony Kushner. Since Kushner’s script has not been published, I eagerly looked forward to experiencing it. This didn’t prove to be easy due to Jain’s direction and the music of Jordan McCree and Mel Hsu. Jain likes multitasking and usually has two things going on at once. The play opens with the waterseller telling of his difficult life, with the admirably physical Jungwoong Kim reciting his role in Korean while other cast members provide simultaneous translations. This works well in PBS documentaries, but in this case, I couldn’t understand either, with much exposition lost right at the beginning.
The continuous music offers an intriguing mixture of Asian and Western instruments. However, even the soft pizzicato of a cello managed to overwhelm the dialogue, with many moments of text being lost. I was particularly interested in Kushner’s lyrics for the songs, but these were disguised mainly by too many sounds from too many places. I tried to like a charming song called “RAIN,” but various noises from the cast made it impossible to understand the lyrics. The sound design of Eugene Lew is assaultingly loud for a three-hundred-seat theater, but evidently, that was what the director needed. The sound design was so generalized that when the entire cast was onstage, one could not ascertain who was speaking. One searched in vain for moving lips while missing the play.
Director Jain is a fan of “loud and weird,” and this is what defines the supporting cast’s performances. The continual plonking of the musicians was accompanied by various screamed lines, often in painfully rhythmic “Beverly Hillbilly” accents. It is unfair to compare productions, but I have seen the play at LaMama in NYC and East Berlin. I remember that the audience doubled over in laughter while still appreciating the seriousness of Brecht’s themes. This GOOD PERSON was not funny. Just strange. Weird is popular today, with many cable television series starring a quirky leading character falling into bizarre straits. If you like these programs, this is the show for you. It could be a hit.
The running time is slightly short of 4 hours.
RUNNING TIME: Three hours and forty-five minutes with one intermission. Bring snacks!
Wilma Theater presents THE GOOD PERSON OF SETZUAN BY Bertolt Brecht. It runs through April 21 at 266 South Broad Street, Philadelphia. Tickets can be obtained by calling 215-546-7824 or online at wilmatheater.org#WilmaGoodPerson