Word: setzuan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that, he just kept coming back and hanging out." Black's parents, divorced rocket scientists, encouraged their son's artistic hanging out, and as Black matured and enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles, he landed in Actors' Gang productions of Peer Gynt and The Good Woman of Setzuan; eventually Robbins recommended Black to his agent. "He was disciplined, professional," Robbins recalls. "As Jack would say, he could also bring the special sauce...
...Good Woman of Setzuan...
...According to Brecht's doctrine of the epic play, setting works in an unfamiliar and unsympathetic context allows the audience to absorb the message of the works rather than getting absorbed in the character and stories. If Andrei Serban's seminew production of Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan shows anything, it's that a playwright's intentions can be taken far beyond the level of good taste and still work as great theater. Assuming of course, that your idea of great theater is irony applied with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer...
...example, the good woman of the title is Shen Te (Priscilla Smith), a ho' in pre-war Setzuan. A sort of Oriental Mary Magdalene, she is the only person in the province willing to house three Gods (Isabell Monk, Harry S. Murphy and Thom Molinaro) on a fact finding mission from heaven. The deities--who obviously left home without it--reward Shen Te with a small fortune and the admonition to continue being good...
Mother Courage is a demanding play to yet another degree. For this is the play that got away from Brecht the play that unlike The Threepennv Opera Or The Good-Women of Setzuan, transcended Brecht's theories of theater and look on a life of its own. The final scene in which Mother Courage's mute daughter climbs to a rooftop and beats a drum to warn a nearly town of the approaching enemy can be one of the most moving scenes in post-modern drama. Because of its emotional force it almost disproves its creator's theories In that...