A Pinch of Snuff from Pandora's Box. New Light on Karl Kraus and Frank Wedekind

Abstract

ON 29 May 1905 Karl Kraus presented an invited Viennese audience with a perfonnance of Frank Wedekind's controversial tragedy Die Bilchse der Pandora. The production, directed by Kraus and the Burgtheater actor Albert Heine, and including Wedekind himself as Jack the Ripper, was an enonnous success: the author was called forward to meet the applause no less than six times, and a repeat performance was staged on 15 June in response to public demand. This was in fact neither a premiere production the play had already been performed in Niirnberg the previous year! nor a full-scale public one, owing to the rigorous Viennese censorship regulations; nevertheless, it was recognized by both Kraus and Wedekind as an important step in the protracted and energetic campaign on Wedekind's behalf which Kraus was waging in Die Fackel. After returning to Munich, Wedekind wrote to Kraus thanking him for his efforts, describing the production as 'ganz ohne Zweifel einer der bedeutungsvollsten Zeitpunkte in der Entwicklung meiner literarischen Tatigkeit'.2 Kraus printed this letter in the following issue of Die Fackel, along with the text of the introductory address he had given in the theatre beforehand (Die Fackel, No. 182, 9 June 1905, pp.I-16;hereafterabbreviated to F.182etc.). In the next issue he continued to attack the Viennese press for misrepresenting or ignoring the production, calling it 'die starkste Sensation ... , die sich seit langem auf einer deutschen Biihne abgespielt hat' (F. 183-4, 4 July 1905, p. 45). The long-term value which Kraus set on this achievement can be judged by the frequency with which he continued to refer back to it in the years that followed, sometimes at considerable length. In 1913, for example, he reacted savagely when a highly-publicized production of the same play, with Gertrud Eysoldt as Lulu, threatened to obscure his earlier pioneering venture ('Eine schone Erinnerung ist mir verdorben', in F. 370-1, 5 March 1913, pp. 23-7). In 1925 he read in public a revised version of his essay on the play, and printed it in Die Fackel to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his triumph (F. 691-6, July 1925, pp. 43-55; read in Vienna on 7 July 1925). This revised text was then slightly altered again and included in the essay-