Zoo District’s ‘Nosferatu’ Has Moments That Sink In

Zoo District Theater’s “Nosferatu” has returned, as vampires do. Recently extended through April 22, it is playing the Evidence Room, one of the nicest new-old performance spaces in Los Angeles.

It is a messy but often exhilarating show. Make that plural: Subtitled “Angel of the Final Hour,” the show is really six or seven shows, jostling for the same spotlight. All of them, happily, come wrapped in a marvelous musical score--played live, by a band of five--written by Jef Bek.

Last year, Bek provided the Muscovite soundscape for Zoo District’s “Master and Margarita.” The current remount of “Nosferatu,” which follows its 1999 premiere, again proves Bek’s talents. Based on these two scores alone, he’s one of L.A.’s most valuable theater artists; the “Nosferatu” score careens from mazurkas to tangos, from Kurt Weill to Danny Elfman to early ‘80s garage rock. It’s wonderfully multidirectional.

The idea here is to explore and explode the Dracula myth, by way of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 German silent classic. The premise: Moments before Murnau’s death in 1931, the film director relives his life as a series of fragmented cinematic memories.

Images from Murnau’s “Nosferatu,” starring the indelibly icky Max Schreck as Count Orlok (here portrayed by Michael Childers), act as counterpoint to scenes set in the “Cafe Fini.” This purgatorial cabaret is haunted by Murnau (D Morris), his lover Hans (Peter Alton) and various other regulars.

Characters from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” flit in and out of the dreamscape, notably Renfield (Loren Rubin, who sneeringly addresses the audience as a bunch of “salad eaters”), and Stoker’s simpy young lovers, Harker (Joe Fria) and Mina (Jenna Fischer). Director Jon Kellam’s staging takes a long time to crank up, but Fria and Fischer’s first scene together does the trick. Crystallizing the show’s commedia-inspired comic style, these two turn an ordinary expository exchange into an inspired duet of squirminess.

The cheapest and lowest stuff in this show is by far the best. (In Act 2, Fria’s Harker prepares for vampire-hunting with Ben Simonetti’s Van Helsing, and it’s like Gothic vaudeville.) Murnau’s ghosts are less vividly realized. And whenever we’re ushered back into the Cafe Fini, it’s as if the very life were being sucked out of “Nosferatu.”

Kaaren J. Luker claims primary authorship here, though the program lists nine “additional writing by” credits, not to mention two “trapeze consultants.” (Well, let’s mention them: Rick Hudson and Eric Snodgrass. Becky Wahlstrom plays the angel of death on the flying trapeze.) It’s defiantly a many-hands project, overfull and not without its tedious bits.

But the peaks--comic and atmospheric--are undeniable. Best of all, composer Bek, driving his band like a mad coachman, ensures that these Transylvanian hills are alive with the sound of some pretty wild music.

* “Nosferatu: Angel of the Final Hour,” Zoo District Theater at the Evidence Room, 2220 W. Beverly Blvd., west of Alvarado. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Also: Thursdays at 8 p.m. beginning March 22. Ends April 22. $20. (323) 769-5674. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Peter Alton: Hans

Michael Childers: Nosferatu

Christine Deaver: Else Lasker-Schuler

Jenna Fischer: Mina

Joe Fria: Jonathan Harker

D Morris: F.W. Murnau

Loren Rubin: Renfield

Antony Sandoval: William Fox

Ben Simonetti: Van Helsing

Created by Jon Kellam, Kaaren J. Luker and Bernadette Sullivan. Written by Kaaren J. Luker. Directed by Jon Kellam. Production design by Michael Franco. Musical direction, music and lyrics by Jef Bek. Choreographer and movement director Brian Frette. Lighting design by Peter Smith. Costumes by Patrice Pitman Quinn. Stage manager Kara Feely.