After the success of Malthouse’s first foray into immersive theatre, 2021’s Because the Night, Artistic Director Matthew Lutton dives back in with another modern-Gothic tale.

It unfolds in a dozen interconnected, intricately designed sets constructed in the large Merlyn Theatre, including where the audience usually sits. We are free to move about, choosing our own adventure among simultaneously occurring scenes, or even explore the sets themselves.

Directed and co-created by Lutton, together with the writer, Keziah Warner, Hour of the Wolf is set in the small town of Hope Hill, where a legendary wolf-woman prowls between 3 and 4am every winter solstice. She takes things, from lives to memories, so during this hour the townspeople are uneasy or reckless, while a newcomer is sceptical.

Wearing headsets that add a moody soundscape and a narrator’s insights and gentle guidance between scenes, the audience is initially ushered into a karaoke-bar set. Conversations between five patrons establish several narrative threads. Depending on where we choose to move at the end of this and other scenes, we will witness or pick up information about relationship breakdowns, a film shoot, car crash, murder and the wolf-woman herself.