Baal (play)

Baal
First published edition
Written by	Bertolt Brecht
Date premiered	8 December 1923 (1923-12-08)
Place premiered	Leipzig
Original language	German

Baal was the first full-length play written by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht.^[1] It concerns a wastrel youth who becomes involved in several sexual affairs and at least one murder. It was written in 1918, when Brecht was a 20-year-old student at Munich University, in response to the expressionist drama The Loner (Der Einsame) by the soon-to-become-Nazi dramatist Hanns Johst.^[2]

The play is written in a form of heightened prose and includes four songs and an introductory choral hymn ("Hymn of Baal the Great"), set to melodies composed by Brecht himself.^[1] Brecht wrote it prior to developing the dramaturgical techniques of epic theatre that characterize his later work, although he did re-work the play in 1926.