FREE THEATRE CHRISTCHURCH
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    • A brief history...
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    • The Tempest
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  • EDUCATION
    • Kidsfest and Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Adult workshops
  • ARCHIVE
    • Productions 1979 - present >
      • The Axe
      • Endgame
      • Digitising Performance
      • Erewhon: Over the Range
      • A Summer Night's Dream
      • How Dare You
      • A Winter's Tale
      • Ubu Nights >
        • Past Ubu Nights >
          • Ma Ubu Night
          • Ubu Through the Looking Glass
          • Ubu in Wonderland Ubu Night
          • Frankenstein Ubu Night
          • Casablanca Ubu Night
          • Faust Ubu Night
          • Not Hamlet Ubu Night
          • Punk Ubu Night
          • The Art of the Deal Ubu Night
          • Crossroads Ubu Night
          • Ubu Shows Us the Way to Brecht's Whiskey Bar
          • The Devil and the Blues Ubu Night
          • Bowie Ubu Night
          • Warhol Ubu Night
          • Berlin Kabarette
          • Beat Ubu Night
          • Twin Peaks Ubu Night
          • David Lynch Ubu Night
          • Kafka Ubu Night
          • Tango Ubu Night
          • Ubu Ubu Night
          • Lovecraft Ubu Night
      • Ars Acustica
      • Alice
      • The Black Rider
      • Frankenstein
      • The Mauricio Kagel Project
      • Te Puna Toi 2015: Footprints/Tapuwae
      • Kafka's Amerika
      • The Soldier's Tale
      • Canterbury Tales
      • I Sing the Body Electric
      • Hereafter
      • Passion, Pulse and Power
      • The Earthquake in Chile
      • Doctor Faustus
      • The Marvellous Corricks >
        • Corricks - Credits
      • Distraction Camp
      • Remake
      • Ella and Susn
      • Free Theatre - 25 years and counting...
      • Faust Chroma
      • Enigma Emmy Goering/Nico Sphinx of Ice
      • Faust Feast
      • Diana Down Under
      • Philoctetes >
        • Production Credits - Piloctetes
      • Fantasia
      • Christmas Shopping
      • Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
      • Achternbusch in the Antipodes
      • Caucasian Chalk Circle
      • Samson Airline
      • Kabarett Kabul
      • Footprints/Tapuwae
      • Last Days of Mankind
      • Medea
      • Bakkhai / Diotek
      • Krapp's Last Tape
      • Murderer Hope of Women / The Philosopher's Stone
      • Comrade Savage
      • Love on a Bicycle
      • Resolution Island
      • Songs for the Judges
      • Crusoe
      • Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus
      • States of Shock
      • Empire Builders
      • Yes
      • Power
      • Robinson Crusoe: Or I THat Was Born To Be My Own Destroyer
      • Newsbites
      • Dumped in Space
      • MedeaMaterial
      • Salome
      • Electra
      • Sphinx and Strawmen
      • The Girl Who Sings Waterfalls
      • Hamletmachine
      • Oresteia
      • A Respectable Wedding
      • Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
      • Double Act and Postponeless
      • Cloudkiwiland
      • Preversions
      • G.O.P. Helpomatic
      • The Mortal Pleasure of Wander Lust
      • Red Cross & Takeaway
      • Lulu Earth Spirit
      • The Meeting
      • Action / Tongues
      • Cowboy Mouth
      • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
      • A Letter from L
      • Dinosaurs and All the Rubbish / The Hunting of the Snark
      • The Ride Across Lake Constance
      • Electra
      • In Three Minds
      • The Rapist Over Suzannah
      • 1984: The Future Is Now
      • Leonce and Lena
      • Kabernette
      • The Joffongract
      • My Foot, My Tutor
      • King Lear
      • King Ubu
      • Jazz Cellar Dada / Heavy Metal Cabaret
      • Kabarett
      • Black Cat Cabaret
      • The Gas Heart/Ox on the Roof/The Mirror Wardrobe One Fine Evening
      • Round Dance
      • Woyzeck
      • Make-up Ground down / Texts for Decomposition
      • Court Case: Arts Centre vs Free Theatre
    • Image Gallery 1979 - present
    • TV3 Clips
    • Selected Reviews
  • SUPPORT
  • BLOG

Lulu Earth Spirit

...a genuinely interesting and thoughtful piece of theatre
John Farnsworth, The Press
Production credits
Picture
Both Lulu and the play she gives her name to are indefinable. It is called a tragedy, but has many comic elements that make it grotesque. Its central character is differently redefined by different men, but each attempt to define her destroys the man who tries. This is dramatized as an animal-taming circus act where civilization represented by man, tries to tame the earth spirit of woman, who proves herself too near to nature to be tamed.

Lulu is the first 'vamp' in European theatre. The prototype of an image that domainated twentieth century film and produced both Marlene Deitrich and Marilyn Munroe. This image, of woman as both innocent child-waif and destroying witch, is a male stereotype, and at times Wedekind comes close to a feminist critique of it. But the fascination of this curious late nineteenth century play (it was first performed in 1895), is that it often seems to contradict itself and there are times when the playwright seems firmly shcakled to the masculine stereotype of woman as angelic bitch. For all his committment ot his plays (he played the main roles himself), he seems to have been unwilling to resolve its contradictions.


"My concern in writing the play was to get rid of all the concepts like 'love', 'faith' and 'gratitude' which are logically untenable"


"My intention was to have the human consciousness (which always excessively overestimates itself) founder on the human unconscious"


Frank Wedekind

Reviews

'Free Theatre's Lulu'
Reviewed by John Farnsworth, The Press, 3 May 1986

'Play lacks an emotion'
Reviewed by Paul Bushnell, The Star, 3 May 1986
Picture
Picture
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • A brief history...
    • Jarry, Ubu, Pataphysics and Free Theatres
    • Manifestos and Writings
    • Who We Are
    • Shirley Horrocks documentary
    • Training and Devising
    • Home, Space and Design
    • Praise and Awards
  • Te Puna Toi
    • Past Te Puna Toi Projects
    • Artists in Residence
  • UPCOMING
    • The Tempest
    • Woyzeck
  • EDUCATION
    • Kidsfest and Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Adult workshops
  • ARCHIVE
    • Productions 1979 - present >
      • The Axe
      • Endgame
      • Digitising Performance
      • Erewhon: Over the Range
      • A Summer Night's Dream
      • How Dare You
      • A Winter's Tale
      • Ubu Nights >
        • Past Ubu Nights >
          • Ma Ubu Night
          • Ubu Through the Looking Glass
          • Ubu in Wonderland Ubu Night
          • Frankenstein Ubu Night
          • Casablanca Ubu Night
          • Faust Ubu Night
          • Not Hamlet Ubu Night
          • Punk Ubu Night
          • The Art of the Deal Ubu Night
          • Crossroads Ubu Night
          • Ubu Shows Us the Way to Brecht's Whiskey Bar
          • The Devil and the Blues Ubu Night
          • Bowie Ubu Night
          • Warhol Ubu Night
          • Berlin Kabarette
          • Beat Ubu Night
          • Twin Peaks Ubu Night
          • David Lynch Ubu Night
          • Kafka Ubu Night
          • Tango Ubu Night
          • Ubu Ubu Night
          • Lovecraft Ubu Night
      • Ars Acustica
      • Alice
      • The Black Rider
      • Frankenstein
      • The Mauricio Kagel Project
      • Te Puna Toi 2015: Footprints/Tapuwae
      • Kafka's Amerika
      • The Soldier's Tale
      • Canterbury Tales
      • I Sing the Body Electric
      • Hereafter
      • Passion, Pulse and Power
      • The Earthquake in Chile
      • Doctor Faustus
      • The Marvellous Corricks >
        • Corricks - Credits
      • Distraction Camp
      • Remake
      • Ella and Susn
      • Free Theatre - 25 years and counting...
      • Faust Chroma
      • Enigma Emmy Goering/Nico Sphinx of Ice
      • Faust Feast
      • Diana Down Under
      • Philoctetes >
        • Production Credits - Piloctetes
      • Fantasia
      • Christmas Shopping
      • Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
      • Achternbusch in the Antipodes
      • Caucasian Chalk Circle
      • Samson Airline
      • Kabarett Kabul
      • Footprints/Tapuwae
      • Last Days of Mankind
      • Medea
      • Bakkhai / Diotek
      • Krapp's Last Tape
      • Murderer Hope of Women / The Philosopher's Stone
      • Comrade Savage
      • Love on a Bicycle
      • Resolution Island
      • Songs for the Judges
      • Crusoe
      • Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus
      • States of Shock
      • Empire Builders
      • Yes
      • Power
      • Robinson Crusoe: Or I THat Was Born To Be My Own Destroyer
      • Newsbites
      • Dumped in Space
      • MedeaMaterial
      • Salome
      • Electra
      • Sphinx and Strawmen
      • The Girl Who Sings Waterfalls
      • Hamletmachine
      • Oresteia
      • A Respectable Wedding
      • Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
      • Double Act and Postponeless
      • Cloudkiwiland
      • Preversions
      • G.O.P. Helpomatic
      • The Mortal Pleasure of Wander Lust
      • Red Cross & Takeaway
      • Lulu Earth Spirit
      • The Meeting
      • Action / Tongues
      • Cowboy Mouth
      • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
      • A Letter from L
      • Dinosaurs and All the Rubbish / The Hunting of the Snark
      • The Ride Across Lake Constance
      • Electra
      • In Three Minds
      • The Rapist Over Suzannah
      • 1984: The Future Is Now
      • Leonce and Lena
      • Kabernette
      • The Joffongract
      • My Foot, My Tutor
      • King Lear
      • King Ubu
      • Jazz Cellar Dada / Heavy Metal Cabaret
      • Kabarett
      • Black Cat Cabaret
      • The Gas Heart/Ox on the Roof/The Mirror Wardrobe One Fine Evening
      • Round Dance
      • Woyzeck
      • Make-up Ground down / Texts for Decomposition
      • Court Case: Arts Centre vs Free Theatre
    • Image Gallery 1979 - present
    • TV3 Clips
    • Selected Reviews
  • SUPPORT
  • BLOG