Dr. Schön, newspaper owner and editor
Alva, his son, a writer
Dr. Goll, M.D.
Schwarz, an artist
Prince Escerny, an African explorer
Escherich, a reporter
Schigolch, a beggar
Rodrigo, an acrobat
Hugenberg, a schoolboy
Ferdinand, a coachman
Lulu
Countess Geschwitz
Henriette, a servant
About This Book
A quartet of plays dramatizes the collision between sexual instinct and repressive social orders, following young people and an alluring woman whose desires and consequences expose hypocrisy, exploitation, and destructive passions. The pieces shift between intimate realism and expressionist, episodic scenes, using frank sexual situations, satire, and grotesque imagery to critique bourgeois morality, legal and religious constraints, and the commodification of bodies. Tone alternates between tragic and sardonic, with recurring motifs of awakening, corruption, and moral collapse, and the structure privileges confrontational dialogue and stark stagecraft to provoke moral reflection rather than offer resolution.