[2015008] Kinski and I
CJ Johnson @ Holden Street Theatres – The Studio
6:00pm, Thu 12 Feb 2015
So… I knew precious little about the professional output of Klaus Kinski prior to this performance, but I was aware of his daughter… and of his legend. Of the ruckus that his unflinching lack-of-compromise seemed to create. Fertile matter, then, for a show that purported to lift the lid on Kinski’s life via his own memoirs… and, with a strapline promising “the banned writings of the world’s most depraved movie star”, expectations were high.
Expectations were not met.
Dressed in plain clothes – jeans, t-shirt, jacket – CJ Johnson did little more than read his script from an iPad propped in front of him; there was very little physical presentation to his performance. The script was little more than edited highlights of Kinski’s autobiography, All I Need Is Love, with occasional asides where Johnson drops back to his own fanboyish personae, espousing his joy at Kinski’s work. But the selection of Kinski’s text to be included was dubious, at best: it felt like a series of snippets selected purely for the shock of the sex they contained – and, let’s be frank, it’s pretty explicit.
And maybe that’s the point: Kinski’s own words conjure up the image of the man as a barely-controlled monster, unable to control his own sexual urges and unwilling to accept the impact of his actions. But when scene after scene devolves into clinical descriptions of his sex life, it all gets a little samey. One-note-ish. Bland.
The short interludes where Johnson drops out of his stern Kinski-esque accent into (presumably) his true self help break up the tedium somewhat; there’s certainly more variation of delivery in these moments, as he leaves the iPad and roams the stage, enthusing at the audience. There’s much discussion of the meta-narrative around Kinski’s autobiography – how the first edition, translated into English by Kinski himself, was pulped upon release – and he proudly displayed his own copy, after regaling us with details of its discovery. But the readings themselves were largely flat in tone, and the one occasion when Johnson attempted to try something different – an exclamation of disbelief from the tech as Kinski relayed the time he forced himself on a young teenager – felt like a wasted opportunity… I wish they’d done more with that.
Upon reflection, I found Kinski and I to be dull beyond belief, and – perhaps worse – a painful waste of my time. It was barely theatre, with an oppressive and single-minded intent to assault the audience with cold tales of occasionally unbelievable sexual conquest until all shock is subsumed by numbness. Maybe these highlights of Kinski’s life were too much for my little mind to take… or maybe the manner of their delivery sucked all the titillating spectacle out of them.
(8) Kinski and I: Oppressive and explicit and fascinating account of a broken man, tempered by appreciation of his art. #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) February 12, 2015