Jerk

Jerk is a collaborative work by French director and choreographer Gisèle Vienne, American writer Dennis Cooper and French actor and performer Jonathan Capdevielle. The production website describes it as "an imaginary reconstruction - strange, poetic, funny and sombre" of the crimes perpetrated by American serial killer Dean Corll who, with the help of teenagers David Brooks and Wayne Henley, killed more than 20 boys in the state of Texas during the mid-1970s.

Jerk focuses on David Brooks who is serving a life sentence. The website explains that in prison, "he learns the art of puppets, which somehow enables him to face up to his responsibility as partner in the crimes. He has written a show that reconstructs the murders committed by Dean Corll, using puppets for all the roles. He performs his show in prison for a class of psychology students from a local university." Following in the traditions of puppet theatre which was historically used to enact violent and illicit subjects, Jerk mixes sexuality and violence in the form of gore aesthetics.

The work merges three plays that were produced in collaboration with Cooper: I Apologize (2004), Une belle enfant blonde (2005) and Kindertotenlieder (2007) which probed the links between fantasy and reality.

www.g-v.fr