Der gute Mensch von Sezuan (The Good Person of Szechwan) is arguably Bertolt Brecht's strangest play, so strange for European and American audiences that it is not so strange for Chinese or Indian audiences today. The play's plot is based on one of the ancient Roman Metamorphoses by Ovid set in Phrygia, “Baucis and Philemon”; it is written for a modern, Germanspeaking audience and the setting is supposed to be proto-industrial China. In European and American productions of the play, the setting has consistently been a foreign, Chinese one. When performed in China, the setting of the play has also been consistently Chinese, though with references to a specific region. In many productions, the setting is not even Chinese anymore, most notably in India today where it has become … Indian. Considering that this highly transcultural play has been staged everywhere in the world ever since its Zurich première in 1943, and has met with considerable success in Asia, one may acknowledge that Der gute Mensch represents a subject of major interest for scholars in the fields of Comparative Literature and Theater Studies in particular but also the Humanities in general.

As a matter of fact, various aspects of Der gute Mensch von Sezuan cohere with some of Brecht's theoretical intentions: among some of the most flagrant epic features of this play is the fact that he purposely sets the story in a foreign place, a Chinese region, Sichuan, far away from the potential European spectators, so as to subject them to an “estrangement effect” (Verfremdungseffekt). As Tom Kuhn reminds the reader in his introduction to Brecht's play:

Much has been written on Brecht's interest in the cultures of Asia, in the performing arts in particular.