Two of Wedekind’s most seminal plays,
Earth Spirit and
Pandora’s Box both focus on the actions of the young
heroine Lulu, who embodies both animal sensuality and
waif-like innocence, as she escapes a life on the streets,
receives a society education, marries, takes on various
lovers, becomes a dancer in a revue, is imprisoned for
murder and encounters Jack the Ripper.
When
Earth Spirit was premiered Leipzig in 1898,
Wedekind was vilified and persecuted for advocating
unfeigned sexual pleasure and making his heroine a
heartless whore.
Death and Devil and
Castle Wetterstein,
the other plays that make up this volume, are essentially
extensions of and complimentary to the Lulu tragedies.
________
'A timelessly ripe and ambiguous morality tale… that remains scarily relevant.'
The Times
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Read an excerpt from
The Lulu Plays and other Sex Tragedies
By the same author:
