How can a good person come to a good end in a world that is, in essence, not good? This is the central question of Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Sichuan, staged by this year's McGill Theatre Lab – a full-year production class in which students work on a collaborative project that eventually culminates in a spring performance.

Directed by Myra Wyatt Selkirk, the play centers on a prostitute named Shen Te who struggles to lead a "good" life according to the terms of morality taught by the gods, without allowing herself to be trod upon by those who abuse her goodness. However, when her neighbors take advantage of her kindness, taking her food and moving into her small tobacco shop, Shen Te is forced to invent an alter ego in the form of her male cousin Shui Ta who is, conversely, business-minded, unemotional, and pragmatic.

The play is difficult to understand if you are not well-versed in Brecht's distinctive theatrical style. Making good use of his famous tactic of verfremdungseffekt – distancing the audience from what is taking place on stage by making the familiar seem strange – characters wear pig snouts while stuffed animals and puppets are cast as real characters. By situating the play in an "exotic" setting – the Chinese province of Sichuan – Brecht further distances the western audience from any sense of familiarity.

Allegorically, The Good Person of Sichuan explores a classic Brechtian dilemma: is it possible to be good while still looking out for yourself in a merciless world? With the human psyche split in two through Shen Te's inhabiting of two disparate characters, Brecht urges the audience to develop their own interpretation of goodness. Shen Te may be called a "better person" than her cousin, but she is also a pushover who gets taken advantage of.

While Shen Te falls in love with a pilot named Yang Sun (Kate Sketchley) in a moment of helpless passion, Shui Ta sees Yang Sun for the scheming conman that he is. When somebody asks Shen Te if it bothers her that Yang Sun is a "bad" person, she responds resolutely, "How can he help it? He's in poverty." Shen Te's altruism simply cannot be reconciled with Shui Ta's capitalistic philosophy of exploiting young workers – which is clearly a jab at the patriarchal economic system.

While it's easy to get wrapped up in the startlingly outlandish nature of the play, it's important to remember that the performance was not simply rehearsed like any other play, but is rather an impressive result of in depth analysis and investigation of Brecht's text. The cast not only had to write academic papers on the text, but was also responsible for costume, set design, music, and all of the play's production aspects.

In accordance with Brecht's method of "epic theatre," the Theatre Lab's rendition of the play makes the audience acutely aware that they are indeed watching a play. Wang (Marko Djurdjic) speaks directly to the audience throughout the play, asking them questions and referring to the actions onstage. The performance features highly amusing moments of song and outbursts of dancing opium addicts, which, like most of the play, seem a bit out of place, but are somehow sensible within the context of the play as a whole.

Although political, the play is not didactic. Rejecting realist conventions of theatre, Brecht shows you what is being presented, but he never tells you where to stand in relation to it. The play demonstrates that human action is not always rational, but also suggests that this is not necessarily a bad thing. In one poignant monologue, Shen Te cries out, "I could not be good to others and at the same time to myself … for your great plan, O gods, I was human and too small."

At the end of the play, the responsibility of finding a solution to this seemingly irresolvable paradox is thrown onto the shoulders of the audience. As the gods refuse to offer Shen Te any guidance, the audience must see for themselves that something greater is needed in order to resolve the conflict. This play is undoubtedly perplexing, jilting and difficult – but quite deliberately so.

The Good Person of Sichuan plays April 8 to 10 at 7:30 p.m. in Moyse Hall. Tickets are $5 for students and more information can be found at www.mcgill.ca/english/moyse.