The Soul of good Sezuan
1938-40 darkest years of the recent history of Europe when fascism seems to have become an irresistible force: the years in which it consumes the sacrifice of the English Republic and the Western democracies capitulate to Hitler and Monaco, with fierce determination, began its war machine and invaded Czechoslovakia, crushing Poland, Norway deals, strangles her back to France; and not just the bold hatches Mussolini, but alas, the same Soviet Russia will participate in the crumbs of the bloody banquet, and whoever tries to make sense of all this horror, we read in the face of despair, dismay at the abyss populated by wolves and fires to which the world went on. In turn this years Brecht, in exile in Denmark and Finland, is a measure of maturity now reached by his genius composing those who are perhaps its two most highly theatrical works freely and ponder: "Life of Galileo" and "The good soul of Sezuan.
For if the grandeur of the character and the dazzling (especially since August '45) issue of responsiveness to the problems of our age have given up and continues to give, to Galileo a force of unparalleled power of the public everywhere , it is certain that no other Brechtian text (except as examples of didactic works - "The exception is the rule," "The Orazi and Curiazi" - Where the predominant character and purpose are, however, indisputable experimental) reaches the purity of design and consistency of thought, the vividness of poetic-ideological "parable stage" of Shen Te.
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