The first Lulu play by Frank Wedekind, preceding Pandora’s Box, is titled Earth Spirit. Its German title is Erdgeist, and it introduces Lulu as the central figure of Wedekind’s two-play sequence.
The second play is Pandora’s Box, or Die Büchse der Pandora. Together, the dramas follow Lulu through a series of relationships shaped by desire, power, social judgment, and violence. The plays later inspired major theatrical, operatic, and cinematic adaptations.
Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s 1929 film Pandora’s Box draws on both Lulu plays rather than adapting only the second drama in a straightforward way. Alban Berg’s unfinished opera Lulu also draws from Wedekind’s material.
Earth Spirit is sometimes confused with Spring Awakening, another famous Wedekind play. Spring Awakening is a separate drama, first published in 1891, about adolescent repression.