Dossier - Key Performance

JERK
Solo performance for puppeteer
“Jerk” is an imaginary reconstruction – strange, poetic, funny and somber – of the
crimes perpetrated by American serial killer Dean Corll who, with the help of teenagers David
Brooks and Wayne Henley, killed more than twenty boys in the state of Texas during the
mid-70s.
This show sees David Brooks serving his life sentence. 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.
Due to the violence and humor of the text, there is an underlying fierceness to the
performance. The glove puppet theater is in fact the traditional form used to enact violent
illicit subjects. And “Jerk” unabashedly mingles sexuality and violence in the vein of gore
aesthetics, thus harking back to the glove puppet repertory.
The text has been staged as a solo for puppeteer, who uses glove puppets and also
acts the role of con artist.
The story, however realist it may be, seems to border on unrealism. The play’s
apparent realism stems from its linear narration, as well as from its basic true story and from
the trickster-puppeteer’s total identification with the fictive character of David Brooks.
“Jerk” is the fourth play that were produced in collaboration with the American writer
Dennis Cooper: “I Apologize” (2004), “Une belle enfant blonde” (2005) and
“Kindertotenlieder” (2007). In these three plays, the links between fantasy and reality are
being constantly probed, thereby altering our perception of reality. The more realist “Jerk”
puts forth a consistent linear narrative, generating the credibility that undeniably stems from
this form. And it is this undeniability that is reexamined by way of our different formal
experiences.