{"id":4398,"date":"2017-06-08T00:50:59","date_gmt":"2017-06-08T07:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.haunting.net\/?p=4398"},"modified":"2019-11-12T13:53:44","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T21:53:44","slug":"fringe-review-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haunting.net\/fringe-review-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Fringe Review – “Normal” Provokes Audiences with Violent Visual Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe case ended on April the 23rd<\/sup>, 1931. The jury retired for an hour and a half. Peter was sentenced to death 9 times. The judge said that Peter\u2019s crimes had been committed in cold blood, and that during the trial he had created the impression of cleverness, calmness, and considered deliberation. \u00a0\u2018Peter Kurten\u2019, he said, \u2018is normal\u2019.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As human beings, we define ourselves by that which we are not. Sometimes this distinction translates as a list of exceptional abilities: rational thought, language, building skyscrapers. Other times, it is what we don\u2019t do<\/em> that seems most critical to our distinction from the natural world: Humans don\u2019t kill each other for fun. We don\u2019t eat each other humans. We don\u2019t engage in rape as our primary mode of procreation. And we certainly don\u2019t destroy our young. That is, until one of those bleak and occasional moments when someone comes along who does.<\/em>\u00a0A nightmare figure who, by the sheer heinousness of their actions, commit what Noel Carroll famously called \u201ccategory jamming\u2026a breach of the norms of ontological propriety.\u201d Put simply, these are the type of people who commit acts so vile that decent people who hear about them are inclined to say to themselves (most likely in self-assurance), \u201cthat person isn\u2019t even human<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Normal<\/em> tells the true story of perhaps one of the most notorious of these \u201cinhuman\u201d figures: Peter Kurten. A German man who, at the time of his execution in 1931, had committed at least 9 homicides, as well as a string of rapes, attempted murders, assaults, and acts of arson. The great majority of these crimes were committed against women and young girls, and Kurten took a chilling delight in each and every one, famously reporting a spontaneous sexual climax during his murder of 9-year-old Rosa Ohliger with a pair of scissors. Now being mounted by Los Angeles-based theatre company The Vagrancy<\/a> as part of the 2017 Hollywood Fringe Festival, Anthony Neilson\u2019s unflinching script (which originally premiered in 1991) remains as subtly and poetically disquieting as any play you\u2019re likely to see this year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n