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Jupiter
Thomas Jonigk
created the 04 november 2005
Adapted for theatre from the novel by Thomas JONIGK
Translated from the original German by Georges-Arthur GOLDSCHMIDT- Editions Verdier.
Jupiter is one of the most troubling and violent novels of all German litterature produced for a while. Troubling not necessarily just because of its themes of homosexuality but more because of all the madness, and violent not necessarily just because of the masochism but more owing to the narrator’s constant split personality, who becomes his own torturer and the unrelenting commentator of his diversions.
Martin, a young, unemployed homosexual meets a man in a bar one day, who takes him in to look after his pharmacy and walk his hideous dogs. We quickly realise that the man who goes by the name of Jürgen, has committed paedophilic acts on his own daughter and that Martin only follows suit and likes it because he himself has been abused as a child by his own father. The impossibility to get out of the hellish vicious cycle is born from the father-child relationship is revealed in the dizzy closure of the text where the last sentences are also the first.
The intended strangeness of the language is designed to destroy all clichés circulated by the press and advertising, but Jupiter is also a fierce satire of a false world where the human being is reduced to an object by an omnipresent economic logic, where commercial language appeals to a vocabulary of emotions, where all antiestablishment speeches deteriorate into hollow slogans.
Georges-Arthur GOLDSCHMIDT (translator)
Jupiter, EXCERPT
(Flash-back)
I remember the exact day. In a green public space, I had over-18, authorised sexual activity. I can’t quite bring to mind who it was with that I had been thrown to the ground and penetrated, because I never had the occasion to see. Everything was according to the rules.
When leaving, I caught sight of a young man of about my age, who looked fairly nice.
He called me by my name : Martin.
He called me by my name : Martin.
I talked with him. Non, Martin talked with him.
Within the blink of an eye, I found Martin again at Harald’s place.
I was, he was, no, we were there for 15 minutes. Why hadn’t we had sex yet ?
He looked me up and down, no, looked Martin up and down, but wasn’t even erect.
I couldn’t stand being looked at. I wanted to go, but Martin seemed to feel good there right where he was.’
Production : Diphtong Cie, with the support of montévidéo
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(Translated by Hannah Jones)