'You Won't Want the Moment to End': Nick Cave in the Theatre, from King Ink to Collaborating with Vesturport

This chapter explores Nick Cave's distinctive compositions for the theatre. To date, Cave has composed the music and song lyrics for a stage adaptation of Franz Kafka's novella Metamorphosis (2006), a production of Georg Büchne's modernist classic Woyzeck (2005), and Goethe's Faust (2010). All of them were performed by the Icelandic physical theatre company Vesturport Theatre. This article examines the extent to which these theatre productions are informed by Nick Cave's music aesthetic; it discusses Cave as an experimental playwright, and touches on the theatrical sensibility of his music and live performances.