Lulu is bad news. Don't believe me? Just take a glance at the couch that resides immediately in front of front row, center, in Washington Shakespeare Company's production of this Nicholas Wright-penned mashed-up adaptation of two notorious Frank Wedekind plays. There you'll find the trail of broken hearts and broken bodies the seductress leaves in her wake, in the form of dead husbands — one per act of this bloody, bawdy play — forced to sit there and watch helplessly after she has heartlessly dispatched them.

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Rape is an inarguably powerful subject matter for drama. Throw in the fact that one particular rape was, according to legend, responsible for the fall of the Roman empire, and you've got quite the weighty subject for a play on your hands.