Frank Wedekind created Lulu in the plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. The German playwright wrote the two dramas as parts of a larger story about Lulu, a sexually independent woman whose relationships produce social scandal and tragedy.
Earth Spirit was published in 1895, while Pandora’s Box followed in 1904. The works challenged conventional attitudes toward sexuality, morality, and gender in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German society. Their provocative subject matter made Wedekind an important figure in modern European drama.
Georg Wilhelm Pabst adapted the material for the 1929 silent film Pandora’s Box, starring Louise Brooks as Lulu. The film’s title comes directly from Wedekind’s second play, not from a direct adaptation of Hesiod’s narrative about the first woman.
The Lulu plays also influenced later stage and musical works. Alban Berg based his unfinished opera Lulu on Wedekind’s dramas, giving the character a major place in twentieth-century opera as well as in cinema and theatre.