Which playwright wrote the stage dramas adapted into the 1929 film Pandora’s Box?

Frank Wedekind wrote the stage dramas adapted into the 1929 film Pandora’s Box.

The film draws primarily on Wedekind’s plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box, which tell the story of Lulu, a sexually independent woman whose relationships expose hypocrisy and double standards in bourgeois society. G. W. Pabst combined material from both dramas for the screen.

Wedekind was a German playwright whose work often challenged conventional morality and censorship. His Lulu plays were controversial because they treated sexuality, power, violence, and social respectability with unusual directness for their period. The character later appeared in other artistic forms, including Alban Berg’s opera Lulu.

The title can cause confusion because it resembles the ancient Greek myth of Pandora. Wedekind’s Pandora’s Box is not a mythological narrative about the first woman opening a jar; it is the name of a modern drama centered on Lulu and the troubles associated with her.