BAAL

by Bertolt Brecht

directed by Madison Mae Williams

DATES: June 1, 3 & 4 @7:30pm and June 4 @ 2:00pm

VENUE: Arthur Wagner Theatre (Galbraith Hall #157)

CONTENT WARNINGS

Please note that Baal contains depiction and intense themes of violence and sexual assault and sudden loud noises.

ABOUT THE PLAY

Baal is a play obsessed with bodies. A text that is driven by the consumption, decay, and destruction of bodies, Bertolt Brecht’s first full-length play follows the anti-hero Baal as he manipulates, charms, and assaults his way across the German countryside. Baal is a text written in reaction to the artistic movements of both romanticism and expressionism—both of which Brecht ended up rejecting as a theorist and practitioner, leading to his development of the epic theatre movement. The play was written during the final months of World War One, and the horrors of war-torn Europe certainly marked Brecht’s exploration of the poetic, the erotic, the religious, the economic, the violent, and the masculine as intersecting themes.

The questions this play raises are not limited to moral quandaries; it is easy enough to recognize why the actions Baal takes toward and against those he is able to seduce are disgusting and morally reprehensible. This play asks of its characters and of its audience, how do we consume each other? How are our everyday relationships transactional? Even as we recognize the monstrous and the grotesque, what is it that fascinates and seduces us? Why does this power go unchecked? And how are we complicit in its continued existence?