Whose Lulu Is It Anyway? Performing through Dramaturgies of Excess

Frank Wedekind’s turn-of-the-century Lulu plays are among the most produced and researched dramas in the German theatre canon. Despite the lead role’s predominance in the text and the resulting centrality of the actress in performances, criticism and scholarship regularly attribute primary significance in the production and reception of the Lulu plays, and even of the character Lulu, to Wedekind and given male directors. The association of famous directors like G.W. Pabst and Robert Wilson with influential theatre and film productions has only exaggerated the tendency. This essay argues that in the 2004 Lulu at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, director Michael Thalheimer and lead actress Fritzi Haberlandt engaged a dramaturgy of excess that challenged such conventions of attributed authority. It analyzes Haberlandt and Thalheimer’s work together with prominent Lulus from 2011 and 2019, which also deployed excess in their production and performance practices but in very different ways and with very different effects. Each production comprised a notable director/actress pairing (Thalheimer and Haberlandt; Wilson and Angela Winkler; and Stefan Pucher and Lilith Stangenberg, respectively) and attained a significant degree of public and critical attention. Through these Lulus and Lulus, the essay examines how dramaturgies of excess can advance or hinder an actress’s individual performance interventions with significant impact on the overall aesthetic and political efficacy of a theatre production.