Baal
All these deaths had a profound impact on Brecht’s worldview. In 1914 he’d written a column full of patriotic fervor and romanticized jingoism for a local newspaper. In “Augsburg Letters on the War,” composed as the first wounded and dead were arriving back in Augsburg, he described “the ruins of young men as they were carried past us on that gray day” yet concluded that “the great single thing that we Germans want is: To guard our honor. To guard our freedom, to guard ourselves. And that is worth every sacrifice.” By 1916, however, when a professor assigned an essay on Horace’s famous line “It is sweet and proper to die for your fatherland,” Brecht turned in–and was nearly expelled for–a single paragraph ridiculing Horace as an empty-headed propagandist.
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So it’s no surprise that when Brecht sat down in 1918 to write his first play, Baal, it featured a charismatic, amoral young poet hell-bent on squeezing every last drop of pleasure from a hollow, dying world without idealism or heroism. Some critics assert that Brecht based the title character on the poet Villon, and others suggest that Verlaine and Rimbaud were the playwright’s models for Baal and his tortured occasional lover Ekart, while the playwright insisted that his inspiration was a certain hedonistic young man, Josef K., who haunted Augsburg. But the most satisfying explanation is that Brecht, a 20-year-old debauched egomaniac, based the character on himself. Both he and Baal sang their racy poems in taverns and brothels to pick up money; seduced, exploited, and discarded lovers of both sexes; and generally proceeded as though the universe had been set in motion to satisfy their every whim. The only telling difference between the two was economic. Baal, a true bohemian, scrounged for his meager existence on the margins of society while Brecht merely adopted the pose; his wealthy father provided him with hand-tailored clothes, which he made a point of keeping as wrinkled as possible.
Further frustrating any realistic impulses, Brun cross-casts by gender. That choice works best with the lead: playing Baal is the wiry Sharon Gopfert, her lean, muscular physique and ratty gnarl of hair reminiscent of young Brecht himself. And she exudes the kind of frank sexual allure Baal must have; why else would so many fall at his feet despite his callous, unrepentant ways? Merely painting on thick eyebrows to become “masculine,” rolling up her sleeves, and diving into the play, Gopfert is so convincing that her sex quickly becomes a nonissue. But many other cast members devote half their energy to playing the opposite gender, typically in a broad, stereotyped manner, even though gender identity has little to do with the play. The effort expended tends to obscure rather than inform the action.
