Showing posts with label Frank Wedekind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Wedekind. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

New Novel Imagine's Life of Director G.W. Pabst

I am beginning to see articles about a new novel imagining the life of German director G. W. Pabst. Lichtspiel, by the internationally acclaimed German writer Daniel Kehlmann, is already being termed a "masterpiece." (As of now, the book is not available in the United States.)

The novel largely focuses on the years in which the Austrian-born Pabst, unable to leave Germany, continued making films while the Nazi regime was in power. Pabst's earlier life, including the years in which he made films with Garbo, Asta Nielsen, and Louise Brooks, is depicted in flashbacks.

Here are links to articles about the new book in the Berliner Morgenpost, the Basler Zeitung, NZZ Magazin, and Falter. Notably, each of these (and other) reviews make mention of "„Die Büchse der Pandora“ die US-amerikanische Schauspielerin Louise Brooks."

 

Kehlmann's novel Die Vermessung der Welt (translated into English as Measuring the World, 2006) is the best selling book in the German language since Patrick Süskind's Perfume was released in 1985. According to The New York Times, it was the world's second-best selling novel in 2006.

His subsequent novels reached the number one spot on German bestseller list, and each were translated into English. Interestingly, Kehlmann collaborated with Jonathan Franzen and Paul Reitter on Franzen's 2013 book The Kraus Project, a book of translations of Karl Kraus's essays. Notably, in 1904, Kraus aided Frank Wedekind in his first ever staging in Vienna of his controversial play Pandora's Box, which was later turned in a film directed by Frank Wedekind and starring Louise Brooks.

Louise Brooks, second from left, with G.W. Pabst, far right (though he was a leftist).

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Monday, August 1, 2022

The Loves of Lulu - the First American Lulu (not Louise Brooks) part 3

This post is a brief follow-up to the two previous posts about Margot Kelly, the first American actress to play Lulu. Kelly played Wedekind's famed character in The Loves of Lulu in New York in May, 1925 at the time Louise Brooks, who would play Lulu in the 1929 film, Pandora's Box, was performing in the Ziegfeld Follies and taking on a bit part in her first film, The Street of Forgotten Men

Margot Kelly in 1913

Camille Scaysbrook, a longtime member of the Louise Brooks Society noted on Facebook, she searched in vain for a positive review of the provocative play. "I tried in vain to find a positive review, given that everyone from Alexander Woolcott down seems to have considered it the stinker of the year. Amazingly, the only one who liked it was the great George Jean Nathan. His might have been the sole positive review, as it's quoted in advertisements. He also wrote positively (and insightfully) of it in Arts and Decoration. https://books.google.com/books?id=lNJL3qnLa1gC&pg=RA2-PA40"


Inspired by Camille, I went looking for more commentary on the play, and can confirm her findings - everyone hated The Loves of Lulu. Not only did Alexander Woolcott dislike the play, so did another famous critic of the time, Edmund Wilson. And so did John Mason Brown, who, writing in Theater Arts Monthly, called it an "unpardonably bad production." Critic Philip Hale stated, " The audience on the first night of The Loves of Lulu (Wedekind's Erdgeist) laughed ironically and coarsely, guying the whole performance." The New Yorker said it was "played for farce value, perhaps unintentionally."

Writing in The New Republic, Wilson said the play "failed so completely." In Vanity Fair, Woolcott said it lacked "perversion." Ouch! Even Picture Play magazine, which generally focused on films, got in on the massacre. Before noting The Loves of Lulu "played about a week to all but empty houses," Picture Play stated, "It was adapted from a German play called Erdgeist, by Wedekind, which in the original is a morbidly interesting work of real force and coherence. But the translation was so garbled and the acting so bad that it landed in the same heap with its almost illiterate neighbors."

In fact, many of the bad reviews the play received criticized the translation, which was by Samuel Eliot. His translation was the only translation into English at the time. And, according to Peter Bauland's 1968 book, The Hooded Eagle: Modern German Drama on the New York Stage, Margot Kelly's The Loves of Lulu was something rare -- the only professional production of a Wedekind play in New York for many years. Bauland writes, "Between the closing of The Awakening of Spring in 1917 and the off-Broadway performance of Erdgeist as Earth Spirit in 1950, the only professional production in New York of a play by Frank Wedekind came on May 11, 1925. This was Samuel A. Eliot, Jr.’s translation of Erdgeist known as The Loves of Lulu. The German play, written in 1894, was first produced in Leipzig in 1898; its first successful staging was Max Reinhardts 1902 presentation in Berlin. It was Erdgeist and its sequel, Die Biichse der Pandora (Pandora s Box), not granted a permit to be performed in Germany until 1919, that earned for Wedekind his notorious reputation: that of being nothing more than the prophet of a cult which maintained that all human action was the product of tyrannical sex drives, and that in the face of this pressure, man cannot have both happiness and dignity. The reputation was undeserved, for despite Wedekind’s insistence on the power of glandular forces, this is certainly an oversimplification of his motives, and he seldom dealt with sex naturalistically."


All of this got me to wondering, how familiar with Wedekind's original German play could all of these critical critics have been? About the only middling review the play received was in The New Leader, a socialist weekly newspaper. Here is their review.

As I mentioned in the last blog, all this is interesting to me as background on the way Louise Brooks role as Lulu was received in the United States just four years later.

This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2022. Further use prohibited.

Thursday, July 28, 2022

The Loves of Lulu - the First American Lulu (not Louise Brooks) part 1

Recently, while doing some research on Louise Brooks' first film, The Street of Forgotten Men, I came across a 1925 magazine clipping mentioning the The Loves of Lulu, which reportedly was the first American stage presentation of Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays. Notably, the play opened in New York City in May of 1925 - at the same time as Brooks was dancing in the Ziegfeld Follies and The Street of Forgotten Men was in production just across town. How's that for historical overlap?

I was intrigued to find out more, and to learn more about Margot Kelly, the actress who first played Lulu in America. She has a few film credits, but seems primarily to have been a stage actress. Below, is a rather striking photo of Kelly as Lulu. Notably, this photo was taken by Edward Thayer Monroe, who also photographed Brooks. How's that for coincidence?


Interestingly, I also came across a 1924 letter from the Nobel Prize winning playwright Eugene O'Neill to Kenneth Macgowan in which O'Neill mentions Margot Kelly and his interest in the Lulu plays. O'Neill writes, "I've been going over, with the English translations of the separate plays as a trot, the combination made by Wedekind himself of Erdgeist & Pandora's Box which he called Lulu. Margot Kelly dug up a copy of it in Library of Congress. It looks good. I'm strong for it, provided we can get a good translator. I'll even promise to help on the dialogue. This Erd-Pandora work of Wedekind's ought to be done somehow. It's the best thing of its kind ever written and we ought to do it at the P.P." [Provincetown Playhouse] Ah, what might have been.

Kenneth Macgowan, to whom the letter was addressed, ran the Provincetown Playhouse as its producer, and with Eugene O'Neill as a business partners. In the 1930s, Macgowan went into film as a producer, and even won an Academy Award. Later, he authored a notably early history of film titled Behind the Screen (1965). While it briefly discusses G. W. Pabst, it does not mention Louise Brooks. 

Well, anyways, here is another striking portrait of Margot Kelly. While looking her up online, I came across another portrait, which looks like it was taken ship-board. Kelly, it seems, had been to England, where she played Lulu. The caption on the back of the photo reads, "American actress too daring for London stage Margot Kelly returns from London where she received the "cold shoulder" in the play Loves of Lulu which was a big hit in this country but too risky for Englishmen." She seems like quite a personality.


I have dug up some more on Margot Kelly and her role as Lulu which I will post in the next blog. All this is interesting to me as background on the way Louise Brooks role as Lulu was received just four years later.

This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2022. Further use prohibited.

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Pandora's Box for sale, belonged to producer of Louise Brooks film

Here is something you don't see every day.... An early edition copy of Frank Wedekind's Pandora's Box has come up for sale. What makes it unusual is not its age, though vintage copies of the classic play are uncommon. Rather, what makes this copy special is that it once belonged to Seymour Nebenzal, the producer of the 1929 G.W. Pabst directed film Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks. Not surprisingly, the seller is asking a premium. The book is for sale on eBay.


This likely second printing of the play also has Seymour Nebenzal's bookplate.


Seymour Nebenzal got into film production through his father Heinrich Nebenzahl. In 1926, Heinrich Nebenzahl and director-producer Richard Oswald founded the company Nero-Film. (That was the company that released Pandora's Box.) As head of this company, Seymour Nebenzal became one of the most important producers during the German transition from silent to sound film. Besides Pabst, he worked with the directors Douglas Sirk, Edgar G. Ulmer, and Fritz Lang among others. His European credits include People on Sunday (1930), Westfront 1918 (1930), Threepenny Opera (1931), M (1931), Kameradschaft (1931), L'Atlantide (1932), and Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933). Four of the aforementioned films were directed by Pabst.

In 1933, the Nazis forced him into exile. In Paris, he produced films by other German exiles such as Robert Siodmak (his cousin), as well as Max Ophüls and Anatole Litvak. In 1939, he went on to Hollywood where he became one of the first independent producers and worked with some of the same directors he worked with in Europe, namely Edgar G. Ulmer, Douglas Sirk, Léonide Moguy, Arthur Ripley, and Albert S. Rogell.

Speaking of Pandora's Box.... I own a number of copies of the Wedekind play, from early German editions to a first edition of the first American translation (both in softcover and hardback) to later translations and reprints to Eric Bentley's recent Monster Tragedy. Each feature something a little different - a translation, an introduction, or illustrations. (I especially treasure editions which depict or discuss Louise Brooks.) Earlier today I received in the mail the latest volume which I will add to my small collection. This hardcover volume, Five Tragedies of Sex, features translations of Wedekind's plays by Frances Fawcett and Stephen Spender (the noted English poet). Here is a picture of my new treasure, which I purchased through eBay.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

A ballet of Frank Wedekind's Lulu

If you are near the Oper Halle (Saale), Germany on December 4, 2015 you might want to check out the premiere of Lulu, a ballet enacted by Jochen Ulrich & the Tanzfonds Erbe, based on Frank  Wedekind's Büchse der Pandora and Erdgeist.

There are performances on Dec. 30th 2015; Jan. 23rd & 31st, Feb. 26th, March 4th and June 25th 2016. For more information see http://buehnen-halle.de/lulu


Gefördert von TANZFONDS ERBE – eine Initiative der Kulturstiftung des Bundes
Mit der Premiere des Balletts »Lulu« des 2012 verstorbenen Choreografen Jochen Ulrich, einem der entscheidendsten Wegbereiter des Modernen Tanzes in Deutschland, knüpft das Ballett Rossa an die erfolgreiche Vertanzung von dessen »Anna Karenina« an. Auch bei diesem Handlungsballett nach der gesellschaftskritischen Doppeltragödie »Erdgeist« und »Die Büchse der Pandora« des deutschen Schriftstellers und Dramatikers Frank Wedekind steht eine der faszinierendsten Frauenfiguren der Weltliteratur im Mittelpunkt. Als musikalische Grundlage dienen Kompositionen des Italieners Nino Rota zu den zwischen 1952 und 1970 entstandenen Filmen »Rocco und seine Brüder« und »Der Leopard« von Visconti sowie »Der weiße Scheich«, »La Strada«, »8 ½« und »Die Clowns« von Fellini, die sowohl groteske als auch dekadent neo-roman- tische Züge tragen. Hierzu erzählt Jochen Ulrich seine »Lulu« mit seinem unverwechselbaren ausdrucksstarken Tanzstil als Geschichte einer selbstbewusst mit ihrer erotischen Anziehungskraft spielenden Frau aus einfachsten Verhältnissen. Alle Männer, die ihr begegnen, erliegen ihren Verführungs- künsten. Indem Lulu deren Fantasien befriedigt, bringt sie ihre Liebhaber um den Verstand und treibt sie in den Tod. Auf der Flucht vor der Polizei landet sie in London, wo sie sich – inzwischen selbst emotional ausgebeutet – im finstersten Milieu prostituiert und die Begegnung mit dem Freier Jack the Ripper tragisch endet.

Musikalische Leitung Hilary Griffiths

Musikalische Leitung Robbert van Steijn

Inszenierung und Choreografie Jochen Ulrich †

Inszenierung und Choroegrafie Darie Cardyn

Bühne Katrin Kegler-Fritsch

Kostüme Marie-Therese Cramer

Dramaturgie Manfred Weber

Dr. Schön Michal Sedláček

Eduard Schwarz Johan Plaitano

Lulu Yuliya Gerbyna

Dr. Goll Martin Zanotti

Schigolch Dalier Burchanow

Ballett Rossa

Statisterie der Oper Halle

Staatskapelle Halle

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Another new Lulu production

If you are near the Oper Halle (Saale), Germany on December 4, 2015 you might want to check out the premiere of Lulu, a ballet enacted by Jochen Ulrich & the Tanzfonds Erbe, based on Frank  Wedekind's Büchse der Pandora and Erdgeist.

There are performances on Dec. 30th 2015; Jan. 23rd & 31st, Feb. 26th, March 4th and June 25th 2016. For more information see http://buehnen-halle.de/lulu


Gefördert von TANZFONDS ERBE – eine Initiative der Kulturstiftung des Bundes
Mit der Premiere des Balletts »Lulu« des 2012 verstorbenen Choreografen Jochen Ulrich, einem der entscheidendsten Wegbereiter des Modernen Tanzes in Deutschland, knüpft das Ballett Rossa an die erfolgreiche Vertanzung von dessen »Anna Karenina« an. Auch bei diesem Handlungsballett nach der gesellschaftskritischen Doppeltragödie »Erdgeist« und »Die Büchse der Pandora« des deutschen Schriftstellers und Dramatikers Frank Wedekind steht eine der faszinierendsten Frauenfiguren der Weltliteratur im Mittelpunkt. Als musikalische Grundlage dienen Kompositionen des Italieners Nino Rota zu den zwischen 1952 und 1970 entstandenen Filmen »Rocco und seine Brüder« und »Der Leopard« von Visconti sowie »Der weiße Scheich«, »La Strada«, »8 ½« und »Die Clowns« von Fellini, die sowohl groteske als auch dekadent neo-roman- tische Züge tragen. Hierzu erzählt Jochen Ulrich seine »Lulu« mit seinem unverwechselbaren ausdrucksstarken Tanzstil als Geschichte einer selbstbewusst mit ihrer erotischen Anziehungskraft spielenden Frau aus einfachsten Verhältnissen. Alle Männer, die ihr begegnen, erliegen ihren Verführungs- künsten. Indem Lulu deren Fantasien befriedigt, bringt sie ihre Liebhaber um den Verstand und treibt sie in den Tod. Auf der Flucht vor der Polizei landet sie in London, wo sie sich – inzwischen selbst emotional ausgebeutet – im finstersten Milieu prostituiert und die Begegnung mit dem Freier Jack the Ripper tragisch endet.

Musikalische Leitung Hilary Griffiths

Musikalische Leitung Robbert van Steijn

Inszenierung und Choreografie Jochen Ulrich †

Inszenierung und Choroegrafie Darie Cardyn

Bühne Katrin Kegler-Fritsch

Kostüme Marie-Therese Cramer

Dramaturgie Manfred Weber

Dr. Schön Michal Sedláček

Eduard Schwarz Johan Plaitano

Lulu Yuliya Gerbyna

Dr. Goll Martin Zanotti

Schigolch Dalier Burchanow

Ballett Rossa

Statisterie der Oper Halle

Staatskapelle Halle

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Lulu's debut. . . on this day in 1905

On this day in history, Lulu made her debut in Vienna.

The premiere of Frank Wedekind’s Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box), a restricted performance due to difficulties with the censor, had already taken place in Nuremberg  in 1904. A second staging, in Vienna, was arranged at the instigation of the critic and satirist Karl Kraus. This second stage production took place at the Trianon Theater in Vienna, Austria on May 29, 1905.

The production was notable, as was the cast. It featured dramatist Frank Wedekind as Jack the Ripper, Tilly Newes (Franks Wedekin's wife, Tilly Wedekind) as Lulu, Arnold Korff as Dr. Hilti (Korff also played the Elder Count Osdorff in the 1929 film, Diary of a Lost Girl), and Irma Karczewska as “Bob.” The play’s producer, Karl Kraus, played Kungu Poti.

Who was Irma Karczewska? She was a striking personality and noted beauty who was involved in an erotic triangle with Kraus and Sigmund Freud's first biographer, the pioneering psychologist Fritz Wittels. Read all about it in Freud and the Child Woman: The Memoirs of Fritz Wittels, edited by Edward Timms, published by Yale University Press in 1995.

According to the publisher, Yale University Press, "In his memoirs, Wittels writes frankly and vividly about the erotic subculture of fin-de-siècle Vienna, early controversies within the Psychoanalytic Society, and the interactions between the two. Freud himself plays a crucial role in the story, and the erotic triangle in which Kraus, Wittels, and Irma Karczewska were involved is shown to have impinged directly on the activities of the famous Society."


One wonders who might have been in the audience on that historic day. Perhaps Sigmund Freud? If not, was he aware of or had he read Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays?

On a not unrelated note, it is known that members of Freud's circle had read and written about Margarete Bohme's famous book, The Diary of a Lost Girl.

Also, on this day in 1967, G.W. Pabst, who directed Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, died in Austria.

Monday, April 7, 2014

"Lulu," a poem by Frank Wedekind

Presented here is Frank Wedekind's poem "Lulu" in its original German, and in rough English translation (by Thomas Gladysz).

Lulu

Ich liebe nicht den Hundetrab
Alltäglichen Verkehres;
Ich liebe das wogende Auf und Ab
Des tosenden Weltenmeeres.
Ich liebe die Liebe, die ernste Kunst,
Urewige Wissenschaft ist,
Die Liebe, die heilige Himmelsgunst,
Die irdische Riesenkraft ist.

Mein ganzes Innre erfülle der Mann
Mit Wucht und mit seelischer Größe.
Aufjauchzend vor Stolz enthüll' ich ihm dann,
Aufjauchzend vor Glück meine Blöße.

=========================================

Lulu

I do not love the dog race
Of everyday intercourse;
I love the heaving up and down
Of the roaring ocean world.
I love love that serious art,
That song of science,
Love, the holy favor of heaven,
The power of giants on earth.

Mankind fulfills my whole soul
With force and with great mind.
I then reveal to men
My nakedness, rejoicing with happiness.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love - the story of the first Lulu

Take a look into the lives of Frank Wedekind and Tilly Wedekind, two well-known figures in the history of German theater.

"Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love is a 70-minute, one-woman show weaving together original text and songs with extracts from Tilly's autobiography, letters between herself and Frank, snippets and themes from his plays, and a few inventions along the way. Set in a circus ring (as indeed Wedekind's first LULU play - Earth Spirit - begins), with a lute, two puppets, a circus ball and some puffs of magic, Tilly No-Body invites the audience into a world of love, loss, theatre and desire. Walking the tightrope of the absurd and the beautiful, the grotesque and sublime, the comic and the tragic - this is a paean to Frank and Tilly, and a waltz towards Weimar Germany. "

This play, written and performed by University of California, Davis professor Bella Merlin, illustrates how Tilly's mindset changed throughout her life, from her time as her husband's muse to her days as the writer's widow.


Find out more about Bella Merlin and her play, Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love, by visiting her website. Or, check out this piece from 2010, when the play was staged in Davis, California.

Bella Merlin has also contributed a seminal, fascinating, thought-provoking, must read essay, "Tilly Wedekind and Lulu: The Role of Her Life or the Role in Her Life," to the book Auto/Biography and Identity: Women, Theatre and Performance, edited by Maggie B B. Gale and Vivien Gardner (Manchester University Press, 2009).

Monday, March 10, 2014

Lulu7 a new take on Frank Wedekind's Lulu

Lulu7, a new work for the stage, is described as a sharp and witty take on Frank Wedekind's Lulu written by Abi Zakarian. In a series of interlinked monologues seven women play Lulu, charting her passage from rags to riches to prostitution to her final fatal encounter with Jack the Ripper.

Lulu7 will be staged at the Drayton Theater in London, England on March 11-15 and again March 18-22. More information on ticket availability here.

Lulu7 is directed by veteran actress Sarah Berger, whose production of Dwina Gibb's Last Confessions of a Scallywag will be produced at the Mill at Sonning this August. Lulu7 was written by Abi Zakarian, who has just been commissioned by the RSC as part of their season of new writing.

Lulu7 is the third production produced by the so and so arts club, a global internet based group of artists from across disciplines.

Monday, July 8, 2013

Audio version of Frank Wedekind's Lulu Play, Pandora's Box

New on LibriVox and the Internet Archive is an audio recording of Frank Wedekind's famous play, Pandora's Box. This LibriVox recording is based on the English-language translation by Samuel Atkins Eliot, Jr. Readers of this blog can follow the two prior links to listen to the recording, or listen via the embedded player shown below.

Tragedies of Sex, by Frank Wedekind,
in translation by Samuel Eliot, Jr.
First American Edition (collection of the
Louise Brooks Society).



Pandora's Box / Die Büchse der Pandora (1904) is the second half of the German dramatist's two 'Lulu' plays. The first is Earth Spirit (1895). Both depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed."

In 1929, G.W. Pabst directed the second silent film version Pandora's Box, which was loosely based on Wedekind's play. Pabst's version starred Louise Brooks. Both Wedekind plays also served as the basis for the 1935 opera, Lulu, by Alban Berg, which premiered posthumously in 1937.

Following the events of Earth Spirit, Pandora's Box charts the downward spiral of Lulu and her companions. Here, Lulu once again plays the role of unwitting temptress (or femme fatale), a siren-like libertine who seals the destruction of her friends and lovers.

The premiere of Pandora's Box, a restricted performance due to difficulties with the censor, took place in Nuremberg on February 1, 1904. The 1905 Viennese premiere, again restricted, was instigated by the satirist Karl Kraus.




Cast of the LibriVox recording (Audio edited by Chuck Williamson)

Lulu: Amanda Friday
Alva Schon: Chuck Williamson
Schigolch: Alan Mapstone
Rodrigo Quast/Kungu Poti: Wupperhippo
Alfred Hugenberg: Charlotte Duckett
Countess Geschwitz: Caprisha Page
Bianetta/Kadidia: Sally Mc
Ludmilla Steinherz/Narrator: Elizabeth Klett
Magelone: Margaret Espaillat
Count Casti Piani: Algy Pug
Puntschu: Alan Weyman
Heilmann/Dr. Hilti: bala
Bob: rookieblue
Detective: Grendel B. Lightyear
Jack: Bob Gonzalez

Friday, February 22, 2013

Anaïs Nin on Lou Salome

The writer Lou Salome (1861-1937) was an inspiration to a handful of important early 20th century writers and thinkers, including Nietzsche, Freud, and Rilke. She was also their muse, and in some cases their lover. Salome also knew and inspired Frank Wedekind, the author of the Lulu plays. It is believed in some quarters that Wedekind based the character of Lulu (played by Louise Brooks in G.W. Pabst's 1929 film, Pandora's Box) at least in part on his relationship with Salome. Wedekind, it is also said, even based the name of Lulu on Salome's name.



Yesterday, February 21st, marked the birthday of the writer Anais Nin (1903-1977). Here is a YouTube video in which Nin speaks about Salome. And here is a video tribute to Lou Salome which I also came across on YouTube. Both are worth watching. For more on Lou Salome and other inspiring women (including photographer Lee Miller), check out Francine Prose's The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Frank Wedekind's Lulu staged in 1930

I found this hard to resist. It is an article, seemingly program notes, about a 1930 stage production at the Lobe Theater of Frank Wedekind's Lulu. The Lobe Theater was in what was Breslau, Germany but is now Wroclaw, Poland. At the time, according to Wikipedia, Breslau was a "known as a stronghold of left wing liberalism" - which is interesting because director G.W. Pabst was also known to be left-leaning liberal, and this play was staged about a year after Pabst directed Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box. The woman depicted in the woodcut sitting on a man's head would be the character of Lulu. Doesn't she seem to have a certain Brooksian flair?


Friday, August 17, 2012

Louise Brooks Society supports Pussy Riot

In the spirit of Frank Wedekind (who was once imprisoned for insults to the Kaiser) and his immortal character Lulu, the Louise Brooks Society declares its support for Pussy Riot. Free Pussy Riot now!


Read their closing statements here -- http://nplusonemag.com/pussy-riot-closing-statements


Sunday, November 28, 2010

New stage adaption of Lulu in Paris

The La Colline - théâtre national in Paris is putting on a new stage adaption of Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays. After this productions plays Paris, it will then tour around France next year. Here are the details via the La Colline website. (The production runs through December 23 - more images and video at the theater website.)

Photo © Élisabeth Carecchio 

overview
In a world where eroticism seems to have become a common law, no man can resist Lulu, even if death is the consequence of pleasure. Wedekind started writing this sensational drama in 1892, and went over it for twenty years, as if the period itself was giving birth to this mythical heroine. In Lulu’s story, the enchanting eros, promise of happiness, ends up turning to trash. The grotesque accents Wedekind valued so much echo till the very last tragic burst of the plot. It is this vim and the combative strength of this writing Stéphane Braunschweig will nourish his staging of the “monstrous tragedy” with.
english subtitled performances
Saturday 4 December at 7.30 p.m

& Tuesday 14 December at 7.30 p.m
cast and creative
director and stage designer Stéphane Braunschweig
artistic collaboration Anne-Françoise Benhamou
costumes Thibault Vancraenenbroeck
lighting Marion Hewlett
sound designer Xavier Jacquot
stage designer collaborator Alexandre De Dardel
director assistant Caroline Guiela
make-up and hair Karine Guillem
with Jean-Baptiste Anoumon, John Arnold, Elsa Bouchain, Thomas Condemine, Claude Duparfait, Philippe Faure, Philippe Girard, Christophe Maltot, Thierry Paret, Claire Rappin, Chloé Réjon, Grégoire Tachnakian, Anne-Laure Tondu
publication
The entire work of Wedekind is published by the edition Théâtrales/Maison Antoine Vitez. The theatrical version of Stephane Braunschweig relies on the first primitive version of the play (1894), translated from german by Jean-Louis Besson and Henri Christophe, to which were integrated a few elements of the 1913 version, translated by Ruth Orthmann, Eloi Recoing and Philippe Ivernel.
tour
Grenoble MC2 - 7 to 13 January 2011
Nantes Le Grand T - 19 to 22 January 2011
Toulouse TNT - 27 to 30 January 2011

Thursday, October 21, 2010

New play about Tilly Wedekind

(adapted from my article on examiner.com)

Frank Wedekind (1864-1918) is a German playwright best known to fans of Louise Brooks as the author of the Lulu plays, which served as the basis for the actress’s later 1929 silent film, Pandora’s Box.

Frank Wedekind was married to an actress named Tilly. She was a singular personality who appeared alongside her husband in some of his most famous works. Tilly even appeared as Lulu in Pandora’s Box back in 1905. (The black and white image below depicts Tilly as Lulu with Wedekind as Schon in an early staging of Lulu.)

A one woman stage play based on the life of Tilly Wedekind, the playwright’s wife and muse, has recently had its world premiere in Davis, California. This new play is called Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love. It’s by Bella Merlin, and is based on many years research by the author. Merlin is a British-born actress and teacher now based at the University of California, Davis. Like Tilly, Merlin once played Lulu in a staging of Lulu (in London in the 1990s). That’s when Merlin got interested in the actress behind the character.

Tilly was devoted to her husband’s work, and during their marriage he wrote powerful plays fueled by their tempestuous relationship. Frank often insisted that Tilly play the female leads.

This 75 minute play follows Tilly's tumbling thoughts. Beginning with her attempted suicide and travelling backwards in time, it weaves together biography, letters, dramatic incidents, puppets, and original songs; Merlin traces the course of the Wedekinds’ passionate marriage, which ended in Tilly’s Frank’s premature death.

This new work is a production of the Sideshow Physical Theatre Company in collaboration with the University of California, Davis Department of Theatre & Dance. Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love is directed by Miles Anderson, with music by David Roesner. (Sample the song, “Tilly Dances,” at http://www.colorblind-visuals.com/files/tillydances.mp3)

Performances of Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love runs through October 24 at the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts in Davis (which is near Sacramento). For more info, check out Bella Merlin’s production blog at http://tillynobody-bellamerlin.blogspot.com/ An information page about the play can also be found at http://mondaviarts.org/events/event.cfm?event_id=933&season=2010


I won't have a chance to see this play. But, I would love to hear from anybody who might.


A postscript to this blog: Tilly Wedekind (1885-1970) lived a long time and even wrote a book, Lulu Die Rolle Meines Lebens, which was published in 1969. It has never been translated from the German. Tilly also appeared in four films, according to IMDb. There is also a book about her called Briefe an Tilly Wedekind, 1930-1955, by Gottfried Benn, which was published in 1986. I have a copy of Tilly's book, but have yet to track down a copy of the Benn book.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Lulu in London in June

Frank Wedekind's Lulu, the stage plays which was the basis for the 1929 G.W. Pabst film, Pandora's Box, will be performed in west London at the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill Gate. The play will enjoy a month-long run, from June 10 to July 10, 2010. More info here.

This version of Wedekind's masterpiece is adapted and directed by Anna Ledwich. The play is designed by Helen Goddard, with lighting by Emma Chapman. Sinead Matthews stars as Lulu.
 
According to the Gate Theater, "Wedekind drew inspiration from circus and variety to create a play that would entertain, thrill and shock. This provocative new production revels in the danger of fatal, decadent desires, harnessing the raw power and precariousness of sexuality to unmask the LULU enigma."

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening in Egypt

I want to call your attention to a blog I just came across about a production of Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening being put on in Egypt. The blog can be found at http://springawakeningegypt.blogspot.com/ Certainly, this blog speaks to the universal qualities of Wedekind's writing. I would encourage you to check it out.

The blog's author writers, "Translated into arabic, the text of german writer Frank Wedekind (Spring Awakening, 1891) has been adapted in regard to the prevailing situation of Egyptian youth, their common experiences were taken as a base. It´s a challenge with 25 Million Teenagers living in Egypt."

"Becoming acquainted with their daily life included listening to flowery ringtones as much as (unspoken) doubts or believes. The subject is sensitive: How does it feel, when individual longings and sexual desires are confronted with certain social, political or religious agreements? Or when the criticism of infidel behavior generates both curiosity and guilt? In interviews, workshops and scenic lectures the text of Wedekind has been re-read from different perspectives. Teenagers and grown-up "experts" tracked down the changes and consequences adolscences brings. Sometimes in a very direct way, sometimes by not answering."

"In April you will meet some of the teenagers again. Not personally. But transformed into fictitious characters of the egyptian Spring Awakening. The borders between document and fiction are flowing. Reality bites meet fantasy pecks. Between tradition and western influence young adolscences, actors and dancers will try their part. On how it works. Or how it doesn´t. Being a teenager."

The play will debut in Cairo in April, with subsequent performances in Alexandria and Minya.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Frank Wedekind dominates contemporary stage

Frank Wedekind, the once little regarded German playwright, now seems to be everywhere! Wedekind (1864-1916) was an early 20th century writer whose sometimes controversial plays, poems, journalism, and fiction include two dramatic works which simply won't fade from the contemporary stage. 

Those two works are Frühlings Erwachen (or Spring Awakening, 1891) and Die Büchse der Pandora (or Pandora's Box, 1904). The latter, of course, was the basis for the classic 1929 silent film by G.W. Pabst which stars Louise Brooks as Lulu.

Recently, Wedekind's Spring Awakening was the
basis for the very popular musical adaption by Duncan Sheik which dominated Broadway (it won a remarkable 8 Tony Awards) and now can be seen in touring productions around the world. Among them is a forthcoming production in Dallas, Texas and a current production in Sydney, Australia.

Wedekind's original plays are also being staged at two American Universities. As the Daily Collegian newspaper reports, "The University of Massachusetts theater department’s production of Spring Awakening: A Sin of Omission is a pleasing new adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play." I'm not sure that "pleasing" is a word that Wedekind would have found . . . pleasing. But this student production, which runs through March 6, does have appeal and does seem to embody the earthy spirit of the original. Here is a slide show of images from the production.


As this production comes to a close, just opening at Brown University in  nearby Providence, Rhode Island is a new production of Wedekind's Pandora's Box. This staging is being called Lulu, and its being directed by Spencer Golub. Lulu runs March 4-7 and March 11-14 at the local Stuart Theatre.

According to the University's Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, "Lulu follows the rise and fall of one dangerous and doomed creature: the sexually educated but passive woman who will go by any name her lovers wish to call her. From presiding over high society Parisian balls to selling herself in London basement rooms, Lulu ruins those around her, and is ruined, for love. Donald Lyons called Lulu a 'symphony – or rather a cacophony – of deotic sexual rhetorics….among the supreme masterpieces of nineteenth-century theatre.' Director Spencer Golub calls Lulu 'very nasty.'"

"An Eyes Wide Shut for an earlier century’s turn, Lulu is a sex tragedy - or comedy - about how basic need and desire are made base by social convention, bourgeois morality and the fantasy life of the mind. Smart, dark, beautiful, twisted, tragic, haunting – you will not forget Lulu, or Lulu." Amen.

I would be interested to hear from anyone who attends this roduction of Lulu. And I would be interested to know more about the actress who plays Lulu. She has some small shoes to fill.

[Not surprisingly, Frank Wedekind is an interest of mine.  I have a small archive of information on various productions of Wedekind's famous play, and the various films and musical works, including Alban Berg's opera, which were based on it. Also, this article on examiner.com has some curious information about the little known American origins of Frank Wedekind. Check it out.]

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

San Francisco origins of Lulu

On Monday, I wrote a piece for examiner.com about researching local history online. My local library, the San Francisco Public Library, recently announced on one of its blogs that a number of city directories and other old books and records had been uploaded to the wonderful Internet Archive.

To see a list of these newly available documents and other content scanned from the San Francisco Public Library, follow the link http://www.archive.org/details/sfpl.

These newly available documents join a number of other works of interest at the Internet Archive. As one can guess, these directories are a great source of historical and genealogical information. Looking around as I love to do, I came across some interesting and obscure informations regarding the origins of "Lulu."

Did you know that the German playwright Frank Wedekind has San Francisco roots? Wedekind, of course, is the author of both Spring Awakening (the basis for the popular Broadway rock musical) and Pandora’s Box (the basis for both the 1929 Louise Brooks silent film, as well as Alban Berg’s 1937 opera).

During the early years of his life, Wedekind's father served as physician. A progressive democrat, he also participated in the 1848 Revolution, and next year escaped to America, where he made a fortune in land speculation. In San Francisco he married Emilie Kammerer, a singer and actress twenty-three years his junior. (Some scholars have speculated that this relationship might have served as a kind of model for the relationship between Lulu and Dr. Schon in Pandora’s Box.)

A search of the newly available city directories for 1858, 1860, and 1862 reveals that the future playwright’s Father, Friedrich Wilhelm Wedekind, had a medical practice at 136 and later 524 Montgomery Street in San Francisco. Doctor Wedekind was also a prominent member of the local German General Benevolent Society as well as President of the local German Club.

Friedrich Wilhelm Wedekind and Emilie Kammerer’s second child – the future writer, was conceived in San Francisco - though born in Hanover, Germany. Early in the pregnancy, the patriotic couple decided to return to their native land. And that’s where Benjamin Franklin Wedekind (named for the free-thinking American revolutionary - and later known simply as Frank) was born in 1864.

I was able to find additional information about the Wedekind's San Francisco sojourn utilizing these newly available online documents. Thank you SFPL. Thank you Internet Archive.
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