For the Wedekind renaissance of the 21st century Eric Bentley has
re-arranged the material and added to it. The piece consists of two
cabaret programs which could be performed together in one long evening
or separately. The first program is framed by two Bentley ballads
telling the stories of Spring's Awakening and The First Lulu,
respectively. Within that frame is a varied series of Wedekind songs
and spoken poems. The second program is framed by two Wedekind short
stories, neither of them ever before presented on an American (or any
other) stage. Within this second frame come poems and songs in which we
meet another Wedekind, a wild poet who also had a tender, even elegiac
side. The two-part show ends with a song by Eric Bentley and Arnold
Black which celebrates, not Wedekind the rebel, but Wedekind the artist.
Eric Bentley has busied himself with Wedekind's work ever since the 1940's. In the 1950's he translated Spring's Awakening in collaboration with Wedekind's daughter, Kadidja. In the 1990's he did the American version of The First Lulu,
Wedekind's other masterpiece. The Applause Books edition of the latter
play contains a chronology that ends with this item, "1993: Eric Bentley
writes the Wedekind Cabaret, an entertainment made up of
approximations in English of Wedekind's poems and songs. Music by
William Bolcom and Arnold Black."