Julia_98 reviewed Baal by Bertolt Brecht
Drowning in Excess – My Encounter with Brecht’s Baal
4 stars
Reading Bertolt Brecht’s Baal felt like standing too close to a fire—at once hypnotic and destructive. The play follows Baal, a poet and musician whose raw talent is matched only by his self-indulgence and cruelty. Instead of being celebrated as a misunderstood genius, he comes across as someone who consumes everything around him: friends, lovers, even himself.
What struck me most was the way Brecht refuses to romanticize the artist. Baal is charismatic, yes, but also repellent—driven by desire, incapable of restraint, leaving ruin wherever he goes. I found myself both fascinated and unsettled, unable to look away from his downward spiral.
The imagery is stark and often brutal: drinking, wandering through taverns, seductions that quickly turn sour, and the slow erosion of his vitality. By the end, Baal is not a tragic hero but a man hollowed out by his own appetites.
For me, the play was less about …
Reading Bertolt Brecht’s Baal felt like standing too close to a fire—at once hypnotic and destructive. The play follows Baal, a poet and musician whose raw talent is matched only by his self-indulgence and cruelty. Instead of being celebrated as a misunderstood genius, he comes across as someone who consumes everything around him: friends, lovers, even himself.
What struck me most was the way Brecht refuses to romanticize the artist. Baal is charismatic, yes, but also repellent—driven by desire, incapable of restraint, leaving ruin wherever he goes. I found myself both fascinated and unsettled, unable to look away from his downward spiral.
The imagery is stark and often brutal: drinking, wandering through taverns, seductions that quickly turn sour, and the slow erosion of his vitality. By the end, Baal is not a tragic hero but a man hollowed out by his own appetites.
For me, the play was less about one individual and more about the myth of the artist as untouchable. Brecht seems to ask: what happens when talent is worshipped without responsibility? Baal left me with unease, but also clarity—the reminder that brilliance without humanity burns everything to ash.