Bertolt Brecht started considering the qualities of a good person in 1939 just before the outbreak of World War II. In all, it took him the best part of three years to come up with his finished product dealing with thistheme: "The Good Person of Setzuan," a play in which he deals with the idea that in an aggressive society, good can only survive as a result of evil.

"The Good Person of Setzuan" is part of the New National Theater's season in Hatsudai. The popular television star Takako Matsu plays the essentially good Shen Te, a poor prostitute who winds up disguising herself as an evil, money-grabbing male cousin, Shui Ta, in order to cover up problems resulting from her goodness.

When three Gods arrive in a city in Setzuan, they look for a place to spend the night, but no one can help them except the young girl Shen Te. The next day the Gods pay Shen Te with silver coins which she uses to open a tobacco shop. Hearing of her good fortune, various groups of people turn up on her doorstep claiming to be distant relatives seeking shelter.

Kazuyoshi Kushida, the director, cleverly gives us overlapping collages reminiscent of news clips of the refugees from Kosovo as the homeless arrive at Shen Te's shop. Shen Te, being a "good person," takes them in, but is soon compromised by their liberty-taking and so invents the strong, power-wielding cousin, Shui Ta, to help her out.

Shen Te's strategy works and no one guesses her double identity. However, gradually things escalate and as always love arrives to complicate matters. A young, unemployed airline pilot Yan Sun (well portrayed by the popular young idol, Katsunori Takahashi) supposedly falls in love with her and she sells the shop to provide him with money on condition of a marriage promise. The pilot, Yang Sun, is in the bad bunch too and does not truly love her. She finds this out in her disguise as her male cousin and is forced to play the male cousin more and more in order to get her money back.

By this time she is pregnant, but keeps this secret as she plays a ruthless tobacco factory owner. But what has happened to the angel of the slums? People become suspicious and finally believe the wicked cousin has killed her. So Shui Ta is accused of murder and is put on trial, for her own murder. At the end of the play, she is forced to reveal her double identity to the Gods who will pass judgment on her evil deeds.

The challenge to Brecht of how to deal with the paradox of good and evil is also a challenge for the actor who plays the good person. Takako Matsu of television fame stands up to the challenge well and provides us with a persuasive evil cousin. She jumps between the male and female roles with dexterity. However, the basic humanity of a good-natured street girl is lacking and therefore the depth of the initial character is somewhat missing.

The main problem is Matsu's age. The character requires maturity and sincere altruism rather than pretty cuteness to carry the play through. Matsu's performance gathers momentum as it progresses and it is wonderful to see her make a valiant attempt at this complex role. We can clearly see that she has much to offer the theater and one can already sense the strength of her family's theatrical tradition in her style of performance.

The play is set in the Orient and uses Chinese theater techniques to the full, such as songs, masks, Oriental acrobatics and narrative style of speech delivery. The cast has to be unusually skilled and versatile, and in this production, they truly are. Kushida previously directed Kobo Abe's "The Ghost is Here" at the New National Theater; his forte is creating a group theatrical experience, and as always he creates a balance within his cast so that the group work is flawless.

The members of the cast come from as far afield as Iceland, France, China and several other countries and with a core of established Japanese actors they wend their way through a series of vocal choruses, tableaux and ingenious language interchanges. Particularly memorable performances are given by Zhang Chunxiang as the water carrier and Lie Dan as the landlady. Eva Aguiriano as Mrs. Shin gives a consistently energetic portrayal. The audience is addressed in Japanese and several European languages, creating a variety of cultural experiences.

The amazing international cast is where the play lifts off. At times we feel we are in a refugee camp as the poor people of Setzuan trundle around the stage. While Kushida's skill is in novelty, originality and depth, he does sometimes pay too little attention to the main scenes and discourse between the major characters. Sometimes his clownlike devices also obscure the detached cold feeling of Brecht. While the music by Coba at times gives a perfect Brechtian discord (so evident in Kurt Weil's music at times), it is a little overromantic for Brecht.

However, the combination of accents, languages, colors and textures is spellbinding. The lighting designer Bruno Goubert achieves amazing effects with pastel steellike colors and hues of brown, gray and purple. He truly understands the feeling of Brecht and produces colors rarely seen in the theater. It is his lighting that brings out the perfect subtle combinations of woven and knitted fabrics created by Emi Wada in her excellent costume designs.

Kushida's "Good Person of Setzuan" is a very exciting melee of Brechtian philosophy, internationalism and theatrical devices. The production definitely deserves the full houses it is pulling.