Die Büchse der Pandora

(Pandora's Box) by Benjamin Franklin Wedekind

   Premiered 1903. In some ways, Pandora's Box is a repudiation of the play it succeeds, Erdgeist (Earth Spirit). It features Lulu and many of the same characters reaping the whirlwind sown in the earlier play. Countess Geschwitz has arranged for Lulu's transfer to a hospital, as Lulu has contracted cholera in prison. Lulu has spent several years there for the murder of Dr. Schön. With Alwa, Lulu escapes from the hospital, and the two flee to France. In the following act, Lulu and Alwa have married, but the pimp Casti-Piani wants to set up Lulu in his business; if she does not agree, he says he will turn her over to the police. Lulu urges the murder of Casti-Piani, realizing that only Countess Geschwitz loves her unconditionally. Alwa, Lulu, and Countess Geschwitz escape shortly before the French police arrive. In the brutal third act, Lulu has become a degraded whore in a London flophouse who services men so that Alwa can go through their coat pockets in an adjacent hallway. Countess Geschwitz appears with a picture of Lulu in her youthful prime, and one of Lulu's clients beats Alwa to death. Lulu goes looking for new customers and returns with a particularly shady one whose name is Jack. Countess Geschwitz attempts suicide as Lulu takes Jack into her room, because Countess Geschwitz realizes that the man is Jack the Ripper. Her suicide attempt fails and Jack finishes her off by disemboweling her. He then kills Lulu in the same manner.

   The box which "Pandora" opened in Earth Spirit fills the stage of Pandora's Box with all manner of pestilence, of which cholera is perhaps the mildest. Wedekind's Lulu is no longer an animated Earth Spirit but a decrepit Typhoid Annie—yet not a shameful figure, according to Wedekind in his prologue to the play. He states (as "the shamefaced author") that he has obeyed his muse and done her bidding, inferring that if Lulu is no longer a force of nature, she is still an instrument of fate. The work premiered at the Intimes Theater in Nuremberg.