Oh Schreck!

He became an international cult figure playing a vampire in F. W. Murnau’s film “Nosferatu”. At the same time, in the mid-1920s, Max Schreck was an actor at the Münchner Kammerspiele. And, allegedly, he still resides in the cellars of the building on Maximilian Strasse, where – as was already the case under the leadership of Otto Falckenberg – there is chatter about “a traditional theatre in crisis”. So they – finally – hire a real star: Max Schreck rises from the depths beneath the stage to new popularity. Meanwhile, the director starts to realise that several bloodsuckers may be involved in this “bloodless theatre” – both in front of and behind the scenes. He becomes acquainted with more and more vampires and learns about their lives. Isolated from the world, often denigrated as an elite, these creatures look at the crises and wars of our day from a different point of view, because they have seen so many already.

The question arises: do you have to drain others to survive or is there another way? And will the stage version of “Nosferatu” be a success or a deadly disaster? In this performance, a brilliant silent-film piano accompaniment, live-drawn horror tableaux and an ensemble of very lively vampires, people and puppets take us into an, at times, highly comedic realm of shadows.

“To keep with F. W. Murnau: you don’t have to ‘play’ a vampire; it suffices to be one.”

– Jan-Christoph Gockel, director