 He spurns his pregnant mistress Sophie and abandons her.He murders his friend Ekart, becoming a fugitive from the police.Defiantly aloof from the consequences of his actions, Baal is nonetheless brought low by his debauchery, dying alone in a forest hut, hunted and deserted, and leaving in his wake the corpses of deflowered maidens and murdered friend

Despite being written in 1918, "Baal" did not receive a theatrical performance until 1923, when it opened on 8 December at the Altes Theater in Leipzig (in a production directed by Alwin Kronacher in which Brecht participated for most rehearsals).