“Capital is dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks,” Karl Marx wrote in Das Kapital. More than a century later, his indictment on capitalism rings truer than ever – and the Malthouse’s new production takes it very literally.
Playwright Keziah Warner’s adaptation of Nosferatu, the classic 1922 silent film (itself an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula), leans right into the metaphor. This version, directed by Bridget Balodis, is set in Bluewater, a fictional Tasmanian mining town on the brink of environmental and economic collapse. Mayor Knock (Max Brown) and his underling Tom (Keegan Joyce) are running out of ideas on how to save the town – until they receive a mysterious letter from Count Orlok (Jacob Collins-Levy), a mainland billionaire with the resources and goodwill to reinvigorate the local economy through vineyards.
