Paris & US | US Debut
Studio Theater

The most recent collaboration between Gisèle Vienne and Dennis Cooper pairs the theatrical savvy of one of France’s most exciting young directors with the controversial musings of the author once called “the most dangerous writer in America.” Armed with an assembly of macabre puppets and Cooper’s chilling text, JERK is told from the vantage point of David Brooks, an accomplice to 1970s serial killer Dean Corll, who uses the puppetry skills he learned in prison to reconstruct his heinous crimes. Cooper was awarded France’s 2007 Prix Sade for writers “going beyond all forms of censure and who [defy] the moral or political order against all forms of intellectual terrorism.” After studying philosophy in college, Vienne pursued her interests in the human body and space at the puppeteering school Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette from 1996 to 1999.

Note: This performance contains depictions of explicit sexuality and violence.