Nicholas Wright's version of Wedekind's celebrated erotic masterpiece is the first to be based on the author's original text, restoring the clarity, the daring and the sexual explicitness of a modern masterpiece written a hundred years before its time.

Lulu is the story of the decline and fall of a young woman possessed of a fatal combination of sexuality and innocence. She passes from German and Parisian high society to the streets of Jack the Ripper's London - destroying, and ultimately destroyed by, her lovers.

Wedekind originally wrote his extraordinary 'monster tragedy' a full twenty years before the First World War. Finding no-one prepared to stage it on account of its sexual candour, he toned it down and rewrote it as two full-length dramas, which is how The Lulu Plays were published and produced throughout most of the twentieth century.

Nicholas Wright's version, based on Wedekind's original text, reveals the author's original conception for the play. It was premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in 2001.

About the Author
Nicholas Wright is a leading British playwright. His plays include: 8 Hotels (Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 2019); an adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's novel The Slaves of Solitude (Hampstead Theatre, 2017); an adaptation of Pat Barker's novel Regeneration (Royal & Derngate, Northampton, 2014); Travelling Light (National Theatre, 2012); The Last of the Duchess (Hampstead Theatre, 2011); Rattigan's Nijinsky (Chichester Festival Theatre, 2011); The Reporter (National Theatre, 2007); a version of Emile Zola's Therese Raquin (National Theatre, 2006); an adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (National Theatre, 2003-4); Vincent In Brixton (National Theatre, 2002; winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Play); a version of Luigi Pirandello's Naked (Almeida Theatre, 1998); and Mrs Klein (National Theatre & West End, 1988). His writing about the theatre includes Changing Stages: A View of British Theatre in the Twentieth Century, co-written with Richard Eyre.

Reviews

'Nicholas Wright's excellent adaptation'

* Guardian *



Book Information
ISBN 9781854594532
Author Frank Wedekind
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint Nick Hern Books
Publisher Nick Hern Books
Weight(grams) 156g
Dimensions(mm) 200mm * 130mm * 7mm