Volume Four of Brecht's Collected Plays contains works from the 1930s. Round Heads and Pointed Heads, based on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, is a powerful political allegory on Nazi racial policy and conditions in Germany. Fear and Misery of the Third Reich creates a montage of some thirty short scenes, showing ordinary life under the Nazis permeated by suspicion and anxiety. Señora Carrar's Rifles is based on J.M. Synge's Riders to the Sea, relocated by Brecht in the Spanish Civil War. The Trial of Lucullus, a radio play, is a starkly poetic pacifist text, in which the Roman general is tried by the Underworld for his military triumphs. Also included are two one-act plays, Dansen and How Much Is Your Iron?
The volume includes an introduction and notes by Tom Kuhn and John Willett as well as variants and additional relevant texts by Brecht.