Who wrote the play Pandora’s Box, which inspired G. W. Pabst’s 1929 film?

Frank Wedekind wrote the play Pandora’s Box, which inspired G. W. Pabst’s 1929 film.

Wedekind was a German playwright whose work often challenged bourgeois morality and conventional sexual attitudes. Pandora’s Box is the second part of a dramatic story centered on Lulu. Its companion play, Earth Spirit, establishes the character and the conflicts that continue in Pandora’s Box.

Pabst’s film primarily adapts both plays rather than reproducing only one. The resulting movie keeps Lulu at the center while reshaping the stage material for silent cinema. The title draws on the ancient Pandora image, but Wedekind’s drama is a modern European story of sexuality, power, class, and social punishment.

Wedekind’s work influenced later theater and cinema, especially through its provocative depiction of Lulu. The character was also adapted for Alban Berg’s opera Lulu. This connection means that the name Pandora’s Box can refer to several related works, but the play itself belongs to Wedekind’s Lulu cycle.