Montague Basement's NOSFERATU: A FRACTURED SYMPHONY comes to Old 505 in January

Montague Basement kicks off Old 505's 2019 season blasting apart one of the most iconic films of the silent era.

Following their recent Melbourne debut with The Public Domain Opera at the Butterfly Club, Sydney-based collective Montague Basement returns in January with a new devised take on everyone's favourite bloodsucker.

Nosferatu: A Fractured Symphony will work from fragments of the 1922 F. W. Murnau film (the intertitles only) to imagine a world without Dracula and to rebuild the myth before our eyes.

"This project really began about two years ago when we starting to devise more," says director Saro Lusty-Cavallari. "We thought the idea of taking the title cards from a silent film and using that as your only reference point in retelling a story would be fascinating."

"This production takes one of the most purely visual forms of storytelling and removes all the imagery, forcing you to get creative in how you reinterpret such an iconic figure."

Dracula as a figure still resonates in today's world, notes Lusty-Cavallari, although he has become a loaded reference.

"We're making the overload of associations the focal point," explains Lusty-Cavallari. "He's a fractured icon; he represents so many different fears to so many people."

"It's almost a gag at this point how he's a Rorschach blot for different schools of thought. You've got Marxist Dracula, feminist Dracula, critical race Dracula, queer Dracula, psychoanalytic Dracula and so on. We thought: chuck them all in."

While much of the original film's visuals have been set aside, the production will by no means shy away from a horror aesthetic.

"Montague Basement has definitely been playing with darkness and violence since we started as a company but it's been extremely liberating to be explicitly working within the horror genre", says Lusty-Cavallari. "At a certain point you need to let that nightmare logic take over."

"I think audiences are going to really respond to that. At least the audience that can stomach it".

What: Nosferatu: A Fractured Symphony

When: January 8 - 19 2019 | 8pm

Where: Old 505 Theatre, 5 Eliza Street Newtown

How much: $30 - $45 (excluding Pay What You Feel Previews)

Tickets: https://Old505Theatre.iwannaticket.com.au/event/nosferatu-MTY1NDY

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