Kinski and I

An award-winner last year at the Sydney Fringe and a hit recently in Adelaide, ABC Radio movie critic CJ Johnson is back at the Sydney Fringe with his shocking revelations about German film star and sex addict Klaus Kinski.  With images of the star projected behind, CJ stands astride a lectern mostly reading from Kinski’s posthumous and banned 1993 autobiography. 

The relentless pornographic detail soon blurs into a psychotic story of his uncontrollable addictions, rages and artistic anarchy. Kinski’s most murderous tirades are directed against Werner Herzog who somehow produced four avant grade classics with this madman.

While Kinski’s text is compulsive, CJ is sometimes uncertain with the German accent and, not surprisingly, falls short of his anti-hero’s lunatic intensity..  He is however fully engaging as himself, when he occasionally steps forward to share his knowledge of Kinski.  Indeed, true to the title, Kinski and I, CJ could have shared more on what he thought motivated Kinski, why he drew so many fans - and women! - and was so special as an actor.

Instead, the records of sexual depravity roll on. This is confronting stuff but ultimately Johnson wins applause for bringing life to such an obsessive, demonic and true story.

Martin Portus