Bonn University Shakespeare Company - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

A mysterious doctor arrives in town with a sleepwalker who predicts the future. When death follows his visions, one man seeks the truth, only to uncover a twisted mind and a reality more fragile than he ever imagined. Step inside the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and see what madness truly looks like.

This play is an adaptation of the legendary 1920 silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. A masterpiece of German Expressionist cinema, directed by Robert Wiene. The film explored deep themes of authority, madness, and the fragile nature of the human psyche, which our stage version brings to life with a new and profound intensity.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari pulls the audience into a psychologically twisted narrative set in a dark, distorted town. The story is told through the eyes of Francis, a young man who recounts a series of terrifying events that began with the arrival of a mysterious spectacle. At the town’s fair, the enigmatic Dr. Caligari presents Cesare, a somnambulist who can predict the future. When Cesare foretells the death of Francis’s friend, Allan, by dawn, and the prophecy comes true, Francis is thrown into a desperate investigation to prove the doctor is a murderer. This is a psychological thriller that will make you question everything you see, culminating in a final reveal that will haunt you long after you leave the theatre.