More than 80 years have passed since the premiere of Faust, F.W. Murnau's silent horror masterpiece, but it's still as creepy as ever. Audiences ran screaming from the theater when Murnau's vampire classic Nosferatu hit the screen four years earlier, in 1922, so one can only imagine how they must have reacted to his moody, sinister, surreal retelling of the legend of the ill-fated alchemist who sells his soul to the devil. In an update for the modern viewer, the famed Dutch collective Willem Breuker Kollektief performs a live soundtrack to the 1926 film that features “an adventurous interplay of rock, skronk, klezmer and jazz, offering a counterpoint to the film's stark chiaroscuro imagery and cosmically resonant themes of good and evil.” Known for its enticing ability to alternate between seriousness and mad slapstick, the Kollektief is one of those spontaneously combustible groups that guarantees a surprise somewhere during the evening. It might be, to quote Matt Groening, anything from “an ensemble yelling match … to drunken Dixieland brawling. And that's just the first ten minutes.” At Redcat; Sun., Nov. 9, 7pm; $20, $16 students. (213) 237-2800, www.redcat.org.


Sun., Nov. 9, 7 p.m., 2008

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