As fictional characters go, Lulu is legend.
She is the most famous creation of the German dramatist Frank Wedekind (1864-1918), the author behind Spring Awakening and a handful of other provocative plays from the early years of the 20th century. His two Lulu plays, Der Erdgeist (1895) and Die Buchse der Pandora (1904), were originally written as a single work – and were considered controversial in their day.
As conceived by Wedekind, Lulu is a force of nature – a one woman wrecking crew - a wild, beautiful, alluring force of feminine energy whose sexuality all too often led to the destruction of the weak men around her. Of course, it wasn’t her fault. "She was created to stir up great disaster," the playwright once said. In Kazan’s words, she is “abnormally familiar with ecstasy.”
Lulu is the ultimate femme fatale.
Lulu is also an archetype. Wedekind’s erotic masterpiece inspired two notable silent films – one from 1921 with Asta Nielsen in the lead. The second, from 1929 with Louise Brooks in role of Lulu, is considered one of the greatest of all silent productions. There is also Alban Berg's acclaimed, though unfinished, 1937 opera, Lulu, as well as numerous later stage and film adaptions. Each owe something to Wedekind’s original work.
The latest in this line of Lulu’s is Mlle. God, a new play loosely adapted by Nicholas Kazan from the original Wedekind texts. Kazan is an Oscar-nominated writer and director and the son of acclaimed director Elia Kazan, as well as the father of Zoe Kazan (who played the role of Lulu in a production at Yale University.)
The Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA world premiere ofMlle. God inaugurated the new Atwater Village Theatre, in the Atwater Village neighborhood of northeast Los Angeles. Mlle. God’s six-week run ends March 6. Reviews have been generally positive. Fellow examiner.com critic Jordan Young like what he saw on opening night.
In Mlle. God, Kazan has re-invented Wedekind’s Lulu, creating a muscular and outrageous dark comedy that is a paean to sex, art, and living in the millisecond. “I was inspired by Wedekind, by Pabst, and most of all by Louise Brooks’ luminous comic performance,” says Kazan. “Sex is, in a way, so simple...the means by which we reproduce. But the experience itself can be so powerful that it overwhelms us...as Lulu does. This is why the character, with her playful joy, still feels so dangerous and shocking: she refuses to assign a moral weight to what is, after all, a biological necessity.”
Mlle. Godstars Annika Marks as Lulu. The double-cast ensemble also features Laura Beckner, Keith Arthur Bolden, Kim Chueh, William Duffy, Tasso Feldman, Kareem Ferguson, Will Harris, Jon Kellam, Andy Lauer, John Nielsen, Gary Patent, Heather Robinson, Keith Szarabajka, Robert Trebor and Jacqueline Wright.
Mlle. God runs through March 6 on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm and 7pm. General admission is $25; pay-what-you-can tickets are available on Thursday, February 3 and Thursday, February 10 when purchased at the door (subject to availability).
For more info: Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA is located in the Atwater Village Theatre complex at 3269 Casitas Ave in Atwater Village, California. On-site parking is free. For reservations and information, call 323-644-1929 or go to www.ensemblestudiotheatrela.org.
Thomas Gladysz is a longtime fan of Louise Brooks, so much so that in 1995 he founded the Louise Brooks Society, an internet-based archive and international fan club devoted to the legendary film star. Gladysz has contributed to books on the actress, organized exhibits, appeared on television and radio, and introduced her films around the world. Recently, he edited and wrote the introduction to a new “Louise Brooks edition” of Margarete Bohme’s The Diary of a Lost Girl. He will be signing books at the Castro Theater in San Francisco on February 12.
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