Who wrote the 1904 play Pandora’s Box, one of the sources for Pabst’s 1929 film?

Frank Wedekind wrote the 1904 play Pandora’s Box, one of the sources for Pabst’s 1929 film.

Frank Wedekind was a German playwright whose work challenged bourgeois morality and conventional theatrical form. Pandora’s Box is the second part of his Lulu drama, following Earth Spirit. Together, the plays trace Lulu’s relationships, social ascent, exploitation, and eventual destruction. Their provocative treatment of sexuality and respectability caused controversy and censorship in the period.

G. W. Pabst’s 1929 film uses both plays as source material, but it is not a scene-by-scene filmed version. The adaptation reorganizes the plot and uses silent-film techniques to create a distinct visual interpretation. Wedekind’s Lulu also inspired later operatic and theatrical works, most notably Alban Berg’s opera Lulu. The title Pandora’s Box connects Wedekind’s drama to the ancient myth, while the character and plot belong to modern European theatre rather than to Hesiod’s story.