There follows a wild nightclub scene set in "Clara's Place" among a debauched assembly of writers and prostitutes, which gives full rein to Wedekind's verbal inventiveness.
In the final Act Franziska finds contentment in rustic surroundings with the painter Karl Almer and her young son Veitralf (named after her two former lovers).
Throughout the text, Wedekind plays off parallels and contrasts with Goethe's Faust, providing German audiences with "irreverent, but affectionate, parody of their national poet.
The conciliatory final scene has been read as "an exaltation of maternal womanhood as a parallel to Goethe's apotheosis of the active male spirit".
This in turn led to the play's English-language premiere at the Gate Theatre (London) in 1998, directed by Georgina Van Welie.
[6] In July 1912 the composer Ferruccio Busoni had been asked by Wedekind via Karl Vollmoeller whether he would be willing to provide incidental music for Franziska.
[7] Busoni considered the proposition, which would have involved composing twelve numbers to be played between the acts, and went as far as preparing a plan for the music and orchestration, of which three sketches (cat.