The puppeteer is an inmate. He plays his puppet show for an audience of psychology students who have come to hear him relate his autobiographical story. He introduces the characters: Dean’s puppet, Wayne’s puppet, and the puppets of several dead boys. He also plays his own role, that of David. David and Wayne are a teenage couple. Dean is older than them. In their house, they talk of multiple murders they committed together: in the cave, the victims were killed by Dean, with the help of Wayne, after having been sexually assaulted, tortured and mutilated. The crimes were recorded on camera by David. The series of murders goes on until the murder of Jamie – a boy Wayne was in love with. Wayne is blinded by rage and kills Dean. David suggests that they put an end to the killing spree. Wayne agrees in a first time. But when he meets Brad, another boy, and engages in an erotic game at the end of which he takes Dean’s place: he tortures Brad until he kills him. After the murder, David kills Wayne during a panic attack. Then he calls the police and confesses to his crimes.

Actor and puppet

Glove-puppet

Ventriloquism

Full-view manipulation

Adults

Cooper Dennis

France

Brest

Electronic text

Murder

Torture

Blood

Perversity

Madness

Drugs

Serial killer

Teenagers

United States of America

Drug addiction

Minor news

Homosexuality

Schizophrenia

Evil

Tragic

Humorous

Gore

Dennis Cooper, Jerk, stage direction by Gisèle Vienne, 2008.

English

Alternating narrative / dialogue

Recounting of memories

Address to the public

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Off-stage voice

Musical pause

Jerk

An old woman who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease is regularly visited by a caretaker. Following the caretaker’s advice, and to delay the consequences of her disease, she records her memories of the objects that surround her on audio cassettes. The audience discovers her story: her childhood in Paris during World War Two, the encounter with the father of her children, her love story with a woman she met in a feminist group in the seventies. The text is structured between daytime, with the recordings and dialogues, and nighttime, when the old woman monologues about the progress of her disease. As the days and nights pass, her state of health deteriorates until she has to be sent to a facility for dependent elderly persons.