Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari marks the first time we’ve incorporated film into a Chatterbox production. The process was both exhausting and a great deal of fun. In creating the script, I spent many long nights with my DVD remote, going back and forth over each minute of the film and mouthing lines to myself. In rehearsal, the cast did the same sort of painstaking work, watching frame by frame to figure out exactly when they needed to jump in. And for the performance itself, Eric managed countless microphones to capture every snort, shuffle, flap, and screech.

The results are, I think, a lot of fun, but they’re more than that. Performing a live soundtrack to a film that is more than 90 years old connects our creative team to the creative team behind the original work. It puts all of us, performer and viewer alike, into active dialogue with the past. Certainly none of us involved in the production will ever watch the film in the same way again.

And what a film it is! The Expressionist sets, the bizarre storyline, the stylized scenes of violence — all come together to create a truly memorable cinematic experience. I hope our own small contribution to the history of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari brings a new dimension to it that complements the original and makes you eager to watch it again and again.

—Robert Arnold