{"id":4678,"date":"2012-11-05T05:50:02","date_gmt":"2012-11-05T13:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=4678"},"modified":"2012-11-06T05:43:09","modified_gmt":"2012-11-06T13:43:09","slug":"good-person-of-setzuan-contemplates-poverty-morals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/11\/05\/good-person-of-setzuan-contemplates-poverty-morals\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Person of Setzuan<\/em> contemplates poverty, morals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poor people can also be good people. Good Person of Setzuan,<\/em> the current production of the University of Victoria\u2019s theatre department, is ready to drive that point home.<\/p>\n

Conrad Alexandrowicz, the director, writer, and choreographer, will be bringing the enlightening play (based on Bertolt Brecht\u2019s classic work) to audiences in November.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Conrad Alexandrowicz is bringing Good Person of Setzuan to audiences. (Photo provided)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brecht asks many important questions about a world where economic inequality is prevalent everywhere. In the play, Shen Te, a young prostitute, tries to be a \u201cgood person\u201d by giving people food, but she fails because many people take advantage of her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problems we have are based on material circumstance of our lives,\u201d says Alexandrowicz. \u201cIf we have money, we can afford to be generous. If we are poor, we all do anything to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexandrowicz says that Brecht claimed that in a monetary system it\u2019s impossible for impoverished people to choose whether they become good people or bad people, regardless of their intensions.<\/p>\n

\u201cMorality is a luxury that only people who are well off can afford to have,\u201d says Alexandrowicz, \u201cthat is the point that Brecht, who was a communist, tried to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brecht was a firm believer in transforming society and creating revolution so that everybody would have enough to eat, says Alexandrowicz. \u201cThey wouldn\u2019t need to turn to crime,\u201d he says. \u201cMost crimes are committed by people who are impoverished, marginalized, or non-white.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poverty has always been a social problem and isn\u2019t going away anytime soon, a reality that Good Person of Setzuan<\/em> tackles head on.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to make this story contemporary. Then people can think about all the people on Pandora downtown who are homeless and do not have money,\u201d says Alexandrowicz. \u201cIt is very easy to lose your home. People live paycheck to paycheck. If something goes wrong, they are on the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that the story of the play is based in China, this is a fictional China that could be anywhere in the world, at any time in history.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Brecht wrote this play in 1938\u01101943, it was very different world then. The Nazis were in power. It was the Second World War and there were mass murders,\u201d says Alexandrowicz. \u201cBut I do not think the world is any better now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good Person of Setzuan
\n<\/em>November 8-24<\/strong>
\nUVic Phoenix Theatre<\/strong>
\nfinearts.uvic.ca\/theatre\/phoenix<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poor people can also be good people. Good Person of Setzuan, the current production of the University of Victoria\u2019s theatre department, is ready to drive that point home. Conrad Alexandrowicz, the director, writer, and choreographer, will be bringing the enlightening play (based on Bertolt Brecht\u2019s classic work) to audiences in November. Brecht asks many important […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4,11,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-arts","category-issue","category-october-31-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4678"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4785,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678\/revisions\/4785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}