Which playwright created the Lulu dramas adapted into the 1929 film Pandora’s Box?

Frank Wedekind created the Lulu dramas adapted into the 1929 film Pandora’s Box. The relevant plays are Erdgeist, or Earth Spirit, and Die Büchse der Pandora, or Pandora’s Box, which together follow the provocative character Lulu.

Wedekind’s Lulu is not the Pandora of Hesiod’s Greek myth, but the title deliberately draws on the older image of a woman associated with temptation, danger, and released consequences. The film condenses and reshapes Wedekind’s dramatic material for silent cinema.

Wedekind was a German playwright whose work often challenged bourgeois morality and conventional theatrical expectations. His Lulu plays were controversial because of their treatment of sexuality, gender, and social hypocrisy. Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s film adaptation became especially famous for Louise Brooks’s performance in the title role.