LOST Theatre Stages World Premiere of LULU - A SEX TRAGEDY, Now thru Aug 17

The LOST Theatre is to present the world premiere of Lulu - A Sex Tragedy, a thrilling new adaptation of Frank Wedekind's plays Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, from today 31 July - Saturday 17 August. Press night is Thursday August 1 at 7.30pm

Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, first seen in 1895 and 1904, trace the story of a sexually-enticing dancer, Lulu, who rises in German society through her relationships with several wealthy men, but who later falls into poverty and prostitution. The story has been interpreted many times since - often combined into one script - on TV and radio, as plays, musicals, operas and even on the 2011 album Lulu, a collaboration between rock musician Lou Reed and heavy metal band Metallica.

Many of the world's great dramatists have since tried to unpick the academic, historical and human elements of Wedekind's early plays. Lulu - A Sex Tragedy is inspired by and adapted from the original texts.

Commissioned by LOST Theatre Artistic Director Mark Magill, Lulu - A Sex Tragedy strives to re-ignite the popularity of the original story while presenting it in a new format for a modern day audience.

The play will be directed by Oliver Jack, the LOST Theatre's Director in Residence, who collaborated on the adaptation with award-winning stage and screenwriter, Patrick Wilde. Wilde's credits include ground-breaking television such as This Life and As If, as well as established dramas such as EastEnders and Casualty. He also penned the feature film Get Real, an adaptation of his own play What's Wrong With Angry?.

Jack, 24, said: "Since discovering Lulu while working as the assistant director on another adaptation of this tale, I've been obsessed with how current and relevant it still is. The academic attention that both writer and play has received has clouded and made more complex what is otherwise a fiercely gripping tale. We have tried to rediscover that story while building on it and making it relevant for a modern day audience. I hope that people will come away from this production with not only a fresh opinion of Wedekind and his work but also of the historical time period in which it was born. Too many revivals of plays from this period take too narrow an academic angle, the play becomes about a single issue rather than the plethora of issues that writers naturally weave into their real-life stories. These are the creations of writers who never lived to experience the destruction of two World Wars. They were writing during a time where money, beauty and pleasure were king. Or in other words... a world not so far from our own. I hope what has been achieved is a playfully irreverent modern retelling of one of the most beautiful and tragic stories I know."

Casting and more creatives to be announced.

Lulu - A Sex Tragedy will run at the LOST Theatre, 208 Wandsworth Road, London SW8 2JU. Box Office: 0844 847 1680 or online: www.losttheatre.co.uk. The show plays Wednesday 31 July - Saturday 17 August, Tuesday - Saturday at 7.30pm and Sunday matinee at 3.00pm. Press night: Thursday 1 August at 7.30pm. Tickets: £14.00, concessions £10.00. Nearest tube: Stockwell & Vauxhall. Train: Vauxhall Station (a 10 minute walk). Bus: 77, 87, 196, P5, N87.

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