Kinski And I will play at the Old 505 Theatre from today, September 3 - September 14 2014 as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival.
Kinski And I explores playwright and film critic
CJ Johnson's response to German movie star Klaus Kinski's sordid memoir of sexual addiction. As a lover of celebrity memoirs that do not shy away from squalid truths, nothing prepared
CJ Johnson for Klaus Kinski's Uncut, which reveals and revels in an intense, often pornographic description of Kinski's lifelong sexual addiction.
"A person might think that I only lie around in bed and pass my time f**king. That's not true... I can't just f**k, I have to earn money, too." - Klaus Kinski, All I Need Is Love
Things got darker and weirder still when CJ tracked down a copy of All I Need Is Love, Kinski's own English translation of his original manuscript, which contained vast cesspools of depravity far exceeding those of Uncut. Indeed, All I Need Is Love was withdrawn and pulped after a lawsuit by Natassia Kinski, Klaus' daughter, and copies are extremely rare.
"Kinski was always the most mad and passionate of actors but his writing takes those qualities to extreme dimensions- it is berserk. He's an incredibly problematic artist to be obsessed with. Questions of separating the artist from the art, as with Polanski, and of unproven yet terribly serious accusations, such as with
Woody Allen, are both hugely present with Kinski. He was a mad, tormented genius, but he may also have been a monster," said
CJ Johnson.
While All I Need Is Love is very funny in its extremity, it is also a shockingly candid first-person account of debilitating, relentless sexual addiction coupled with the fantastical, globe-trotting life of an international movie star through some of cinema's most glamorous - and indulgent - decades.
Kinski and I is part reading - the most heinously debauched passages from the most depraved memoir since the writings of the
Marquis de Sade - and part tale of CJ's own response to this completely unique and possibly insane actor, writer, and pervert par excellence. As Kinski's writings edge from comically over the top to deeply disturbing, resonances with troubled modern artists - such as Polanski, Rolf Harris,
Woody Allen,
Robert Hughes and Jimmy Savile - abound.
CJ Johnson's plays include The Young Tycoons, Hollywood Ending, The Dog Logs, La La Land, Backpacker, and Barnesy, The Harbour and You. He hosts Movieland and is the film critic for Tony Delroy's Nightlife, both on ABC Radio and podcast through iTunes.
Written and Performed by
CJ Johnson
Directed by Michael Pigott
Soundscape by David Stalley
Videoscape by Laura Turner
Kinski and I
Old 505 Theatre, Suite 505, 342 Elizabeth St, Surry Hills
Dates: Wednesday, 3 September - Sunday, 14 September
Times: Wednesday - Saturday 7pm, Sunday 6pm
Tickets: Adult $22, Concession $18
Bookings:
www.kinskiandi.com.au
*including booking fees
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