In the preliminary notes for a film he never made, Fassbinder wrote that he wanted to allow his audience, without any help from him, to make the choice between a short, fulfilled life, and a longer existence that would for the most part be "alienated" and lived outside a "fully conscious" state. He explored varieties of that longer existence in his controversial "anti-theatre" plays, six of which are collected here with a critical introduction. There is Geesche Gottfried of "Bremen Freedom" who systematically poisons the people who try to keep her in her proper place - her father, her children, her two husbands. Anticipating her own death, she sings with each murder "World farewell! Of these I'm tired". There is Petra in "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant", whose need to possess the people she loves destroys every intimate relationship she has: "You'd like to be tender, but again you grow frightened. You're frightened of defeat, of being the weaker one. That's the horrible point on which you know there's no giving in". There is Phoebe Zeitgeist of "Blood on the Cat's Neck", who is sent from another planet to study human democracy but has trouble interacting because, although she has learned the words, she never seems to understand human language. The collection also includes "Katzelmacher", "Pre-Paradise Sorry Now", and Fassbinder's controversial final play, "Garbage, The City and Death".