Dossier - Key Performance

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LES INROCKUPTIBLES March 18-24, 2008 In this jointly-crafted fiery exploit, Gisèle Vienne and American writer Dennis Cooper have gone off the beaten track in their stage version of Jerk. Cooper’s grisly text is based on the true story of serial killer Dean Corll and puppeteer David Brooks, one of the teenagers who took part in Corll’s killing spree. In prison, Brooks writes and performs a glove-puppet act. How is one to go about enacting the bloodthirstiness of these blond and sexy teens? How to set up a distance from the crime and its orgasmic effect in a nearly debauched America? Vienne, who has a strong theatrical background, finds the answer in a story-within-a-story told with remarkable restraint. No superfluous effects, just an electric bass and fanzines handed out to the audience. And most of all, an outstanding actor, Jonathan Capdevielle, who is one of Gisèle Vienne’s regulars. He maneuvers the puppets – superb pieces with mini football gear and wigs – and whenever he breaks off, a sense of anguish hovers in the audience. He also displays ventriloquist skills: Capdevielle grabs our attention for the entire fifty minutes, and has us squirming in fear whenever he laughs. In this kingdom of abstraction and sham, neither Vienne nor Cooper are ever being indulgent. It is purely an autopsy of adolescent distress, dreams of fame and fear of others. In the finale, a psychology professor’s short letter to the serial killer brings in a different angle. Jerk might be unbearable for some. But in our eyes, theater so wisely woven with reality, however violent, is wholesome. LIBERATION March 29, 2008 The Etrange Cargo festival, which offers an interdisciplinary approach to theater, had a powerful kick-off this year with Gisèle Vienne’s Jerk. The young and talented choreographer – she was born in 1976 and has been creating shows for over 8 years (Kindertotenlieder is on at the Théâtre de la Bastille April 24-29) – has joined forces again with American novelist Dennis Cooper, but this time for a solo puppeteer show. With the impressive Jonathan Capdevielle as the serial killer who learned the art of puppets while in jail as a way to exorcise his past, fiction and reality are constantly interlacing. Jerk shrewdly explores this relationship between fantasy and reality. The violent text verges on gore, setting a mood of anxiety that is only heightened by the first-person narration, delivered like matter-of-fact testimony. Up until the amazing ventriloquist act, which in just a few minutes of unsettling magnetism, lets us glimpse the workings of madness.
LE MONDE March 22, 2008 The gruesome tales of “Jerk” Jonathan Capdevielle’s performance in the show Jerk, directed by choreographer Gisèle Vienne, is literally mind-blowing. This solo for puppeteer is an amazing feat of acting, ventriloquism and sound effects, based on a true story’s fictionalized account by American writer Dennis Cooper: in the mid seventies in Texas, a serial killer by the name of Dean Corll murdered over twenty boys with the help of two teenagers. Jerk opened the Etrange Cargo festival at the Ménagerie de Verre in Paris. Created in the framework of France Culture’s radio-performance workshop, Jerk fuses three previous shows about sex and death that Gisèle Vienne put on in collaboration with Dennis Cooper. One of these shows, Kindertotenlieder, is running at the Théâtre de la Bastille April 24-29. This fusion is an exercise in starkness, due to the remarkable selection and economy of theatrical means. A man, a chair, and five puppets are all it takes to reenact the murders. The scantiness of tools offsets the heaviness of the gory tales told by Jonathan Capdevielle in a nearly realistic fashion. While his main role is David (one of the teenagers who wound up in jail), he dons all the other characters for a split-second, especially the young victims. His voice-alterations and dexterous handling of the puppets, between distance and cruelty, compiles a highly disturbing millefeuille of sounds and emotions. An astonishing multi-instrumentalist, Jonathan Capdevielle embodies a schizo phenomenon as disproportionate as its subject. TELERAMA March 19 – 25, 2008 A good slap in the face. That’s what happens when Gisèle Vienne, puppet-making artist and top-literary-trained director, gets hold of a text by her favorite author Dennis Cooper and puts it in the hands of her wonderful pet performer Jonathan Capdevielle. Displaying his trademark talents in acting and ventriloquism, Jonathan Capdevielle is now in the skin of David Brooks, using puppets to reenact his crimes for a class of psychology students. The reason he ended up in prison: he and another teenager took part in the murder of twenty boys, masterminded by serial killer Dean Corll. Yet another master-stroke for Gisèle Vienne, who keeps on probing society through her creepy fantasies. Jerk is a flawless kick-off for the Etrange Cargo festival (“an interdisciplinary approach to theater”).
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