Written while he was a university student, BAAL was Bertolt Brecht's first full-length play and remains one of his most audacious and shocking. The story traces the decline of a drunken and dissolute poet who rejects the conventions and trappings of polite society. Baal roams the countryside, womanizing and brawling. He spurns his pregnant mistress, Sophie, who drowns herself. When he murders his friend Ekart, he becomes a fugitive from the police. Defiantly aloof from the consequences of his actions, Baal is nonetheless brought down by his debauchery, leaving in his wake the corpses of deflowered maidens and murdered friends.
