Mysterious, mercurial, an ever-elusive femme fatale, the figure of Lulu has tempted creative artists for more than a century.
Filmmaker GW Pabst, opera composer Alban Berg and countless others have attempted to mould her to their purposes, seemingly compelled to repeat the actions of the seductress’ hapless victims in Frank Wedekind’s original Lula dramas, Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box.
Director Anna Ledwich is the latest figure to fall under Lulu’s spell. Her fascination has produced an adaptation that is uneven and sometimes awkward, but its repetitions and oddities produce gripping moments and piercing insights.
As conceived by Ledwich, Sinead Matthews’ girlish Lulu is more damaged child than free spirit. Giggling and blowing raspberries, she plays infantile games with Paul Copley’s besotted Dr Goll, the first of her husbands and just one of a string of father figures in her life.
Clearly, a history of abuse propels Lulu from lover to lover, husband to husband - a point Ledwich underscores by having Copley double up as Lulu’s seedy, sinister ‘father’ and by giving us unnerving flashbacks to her childhood.
Is this damage the source of Lulu’s allure? Men - and women - desire her, but their desire doesn’t make them happy. She’s an itch that can’t be scratched. As Michael Colgan’s fretful painter says, “I keep finding ways of prolonging the agony.” His fellow sufferers include Sean Campion’s worldly Schoning, who seems imperturbable but swiftly loses control, as does lesbian Countess Geschwitz (played with assurance by Ledwich herself on opening night in place of the indisposed Caroline Faber).
Lulu’s lovers all give her their own private name - Lulu, Lolly, Mignon, Eve, Katya. It’s an attempt to pin her down, possess her. But she remains beyond their grasp and unknowable - even to herself.
This obscure object of desire is sometimes a little too obscure, in Ledwich’s staging, with the action occasionally invisible if you were not sitting in the front few rows. For the most part, however, the cramped Gate stage enhances the sense of entrapment as Lulu’s serial flights lead her ever closer to her final doom.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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