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The Good Person of Szechwan

Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre

— ,Barbican Theatre

A director who sells out theatres in Moscow, Yury Butusov’s modern-dress version of Brecht’s parable play is punchy and vigorous, with a no-holds-barred performance by Alexandra Ursulyak at its core.

In search of a good person, the gods come to earth and are won over by kindhearted sex worker Shen Te. Her reward is money to open a small tobacco shop where she seeks to turn her life around. But when freeloaders overrun her business and exploit her generosity, she invents a non-existent cousin, ruthless and pragmatic enough to thwart everyone’s schemes.

For her role as the opposing cousins, Ursulyak won a Golden Mask Theatre Award in Russia. She heads an ensemble of actors and musicians who perform Paul Dessau’s songs in the original German, their translation cranking up their political potency. With a focus on the duality of human nature and survival in unstable circumstances, the production is stripped-down, with nods to cabaret and the grotesque. 

Tagged with: Theatre & dance Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre

Duration: 3 hours 20 mins, including an interval
Age guidance: 16+

Performed in Russian and German with English surtitles
 

Presented by the Barbican

Tour produced by Oksana Nemchuk in association with ArtsBridge

The Pushkin Theatre would like to acknowledge the generous support of Roman Abramovich

Creative team

  • Bertolt Brecht   Author
  • Paul Dessau   Music
  • Yury Butusov   Director
  • Alexander Shishkin   Set Design
  • Alexander Sivaev   Lighting
  • Igor Gorsky   Music Director

With

  • Alexandra Ursulyak  
  • Alexander Matrosov  
  • Anastasia Lebedeva  
  • Alexander Arsentiev  
  • Vera Voronkova  
  • Andrey Sukhov  
  • Irina Petrova  
  • Anna Begunova  
  • Aleksey Rahmanov  
  • Natalia Reva-Ryadinskaya  
  • Alexander Dmitriev  
  • Ivan Litvinenko  

Reviews

‘It’s big, it’s energetic, it’s familiar and totally unfamiliar at the same time‘
John Freedman, Moscow Times

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