Nosferatu

“I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.” A feeling of dread is overpowering people. A phantom is in their midst, awakening an ancient fear in them. Nosferatu. Shadow creature, bringer of the plague, ravisher, bloodthirsty, undead. A nightmarish creature that means something different for everyone, but whose inner struggle remains concealed. Unable to awaken from this shared fever dream, a society tries to identify and ward off both this strange horror and the evil within itself.

Ever since Bram Stoker created the modern archetype of a vampire in his novel “Dracula”, our fascination has not waned. There have been countless reinterpretations of the Dracula or Nosferatu figure. The shapeshifter Nosferatu personifies the struggle for immortality and the curse of killing in order to survive. After THE TROJAN WOMEN, NOSFERATU is Australian director Adena Jacobs’s second production for the Burgtheater. In it, she explores that intangible fear that manifests itself in Nosferatu today and puts the focus on the female body. With her mysterious, diorama-like imagery, Jacobs asks a paralysed society: What happened to us? What is this collective fear we have? And who are we taking our powerlessness out on?