Frank Wedekind's plays, collected here in Samuel A. Eliot's translation, move through scenes that feel both theatrical and uncomfortably real. In the excerpt from Earth-Spirit, Lulu changes costumes onstage—from a dancer's raincoat to a classical white dress with a red border—while Alva comments that she is “disclosed by degrees.” The dialogue itself shifts register: one moment Lulu recalls selling flowers before the Alhambra café, the next she sips champagne and discusses marriage as a transaction. Wedekind builds his scenes around such abrupt transitions, where characters oscillate between vulnerability and calculation.

The volume includes four works: Spring's Awakening, Earth-Spirit, Pandora's Box, and Damnation!. Eliot's introduction notes that Wedekind was “far ahead” of his naturalist contemporaries, and the plays indeed resist easy categorization. They are structured as a series of confrontations, often in private rooms or backstage areas, where power is negotiated through glances, gestures, and the manipulation of appearances.

Costume as a Dramatic Device

Throughout the excerpt from Earth-Spirit, clothing is not merely descriptive but functional to the drama. Lulu steps out in a “classical, sleeveless dress, white with a red border, a bright wreath in her hair and a basket of flowers in her hands.” Alva earlier complains that a dancer appeared “thru two acts in raincoats.” These costume changes mark shifts in Lulu's persona—from street vendor to performer to potential bride. Wedekind uses the act of dressing and undressing as a visual shorthand for the roles women are forced to play. Schön, the newspaper editor, dismisses art and focuses on what “the public looks at,” reducing Lulu's body to a commodity. The stage directions emphasize the physicality of these transformations: Lulu holds out her glass, sips, and adjusts her appearance while discussing her future. The costumes themselves become arguments about visibility and control.

The Backstage as a Space of Truth

Wedekind sets key exchanges in dressing rooms and green rooms, where the pretense of public performance is stripped away. In the excerpt, Alva and Lulu speak candidly about her past—how she was “stuck” somewhere as a child, how she first came to his room in a “dark blue dress with black velvet.” These private spaces allow for confessions that would be impossible onstage. Yet even here, the characters are aware of an audience: Schön works the press, Alva composes music for Lulu's dances, and Lulu herself admits she is “not at all suited to the stage.” The backstage becomes a liminal zone where personal history and professional ambition collide. Wedekind's stage directions note who enters and exits, creating a rhythm of interruptions that mirrors the characters' inability to sustain intimacy. The result is a drama that feels both claustrophobic and exposed.

Recurring Images of Flowers and Consumption

Wedekind threads specific images through the dialogue, linking innocence with commerce. Lulu carries a “basket of flowers” onstage, and earlier she recalls trying to sell flowers before the Alhambra café—an act that would have landed her “behind lock and key.” Flowers appear as props, but also as metaphors: Alva says he won't “blow in sun, moon and stars in the first act,” and Lulu's wreath is “bright” but artificial. The characters drink repeatedly—champagne, offered and accepted—and the stage directions note Lulu “sipping” and being warned she is “drinking too much.” This consumption is tied to performance: Lulu must dance to earn a living, yet her body is also what is consumed by the audience. Wedekind does not moralize; he simply presents these details as part of the texture of a world where everything—flowers, costumes, bodies—is for sale.

Movement Between Intimacy and Distance

The excerpt from Earth-Spirit shows characters shifting rapidly between closeness and formality. Alva recalls his “most terrible memory” of seeing into Lulu's relations, then speaks of having “more veneration for you than for my mother.” Lulu, in turn, asks about the Countess who loves Schön, then holds out her glass for more champagne. Wedekind's dialogue is elliptical: characters interrupt each other, change subjects, and leave sentences unfinished. The stage directions emphasize physical proximity—Lulu steps out, holds out her glass—but the emotional distance remains. Schön exits early, leaving Alva and Lulu alone, yet their conversation circles around absent figures: the Prince, the Countess, Schön himself. This structure of approach and withdrawal defines the play's rhythm, suggesting that genuine connection is always deferred, always mediated by the roles each character must play.

Readers approaching Tragedies of Sex will find that Wedekind's plays reward attention to what is not said—the pauses, the costume changes, the objects that appear and disappear. The translation by Samuel A. Eliot preserves the sharpness of the original German, and the introduction provides context without overexplaining. These are works meant to be seen as much as read; the stage directions are integral to the meaning. Let the scenes accumulate, and notice how Wedekind uses the physical world—a dress, a glass, a basket of flowers—to expose the forces that shape his characters' lives.