Lulu is the central character’s first name in Frank Wedekind’s drama Pandora’s Box.
Wedekind’s Pandora’s Box is the second part of a dramatic diptych about Lulu, following Earth Spirit. Lulu is portrayed as a compelling and disruptive figure whose relationships expose hypocrisy, desire, social power, and violence. The character’s actions and the reactions of others create the play’s escalating tragedy.
The work was written in the late nineteenth century and became associated with controversy because of its sexual themes and criticism of bourgeois morality. It was not a simple adaptation of Hesiod’s myth. Wedekind borrowed the Pandora association as a symbolic framework for a modern drama.
The best-known screen version is G. W. Pabst’s 1929 film, in which Louise Brooks played Lulu. Lulu is therefore sometimes mistakenly identified as Pandora, but Pandora is the title’s mythic reference, not the protagonist’s personal name.