Hands of Orlac

This is a fairly random nightmare scenario but I’m sure at some point in your life someone, be it a kid in the playground, a menacing uncle, a joking workmate or a teasing partner has brought this up or you may have just come up with the thought yourself watching on the news an item about transplant lists and operations in the UK. What if you were desperate for some kind of transplant and what if the only organ available belonged to a convicted serial killer/rapist/murderer and was subsequently sewn into your insides and saved your life? Ok so far so scary but not really so bad. But what if then you actually started behaving like the person whose organ you had inherited, suddenly displaying those characteristics that had defined them as serial killer/rapist/murderer?

The Hands of Orlac was a silent film produced by Robert Wiene and released in 1924 and is considered something of a horror classic. The story revolves around a concert pianist, Paul Orlac (Conrad Veidt) who loses his hands in a railway accident. Replacement hands are transplanted onto him in an experimental procedure, but the hands are those of a recently executed murderer. From the point at which he receives the new hands the pianist is tortured by panic attacks and irrational fears, particularly believing that with the hands of the murderer he has also gained the murderer’s predisposition to killing. Strange signs and bizarre threatening letters reinforce these fears and when his father is killed he is suspected of the murder.

This slightly unnerving film is the basis for an operatic production scheduled at the Chelsea Theatre for 29th ad 30th October. During the production “Orlac’s terrifying story is told fusing theatre with opera, drawing on stylised film and gesture as you, the audience, are placed quite literally in the centre of the action.” As the production takes place at the end of October, it’s a great prelude to Halloween and could be fantastic inspiration for your costume as well as a suitably horrifying evening’s entertainment.

Chelsea Theatre
World’s End Place
King’s Road
Chelsea
SW10 0D
02073521967