Five men inside a glasshouse,

displayed like plants in a collection.

Five human beings together, locked in a transparent room — a kind of microscope through which we observe the human species.

​Inside the glasshouse the performers become passive bodies, objects of observation and manipulation, inviting the audience to confront the disturbing coexistence of vulnerability, violence and beauty.

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Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested in 1991 and charged with multiple murders. In his apartment the police discovered decomposing human remains and dozens of Polaroids he had taken of his victims while they were tied up and dismembered. In his freezer they found severed heads, carefully stored in plastic bags.

The Dahmer Syndrome uses the story of Jeffrey Dahmer as a starting point to reconsider the fragile boundary between sexuality and perversion, between observation and voyeurism. The glasshouse becomes a laboratory in which these boundaries are tested — where new limits emerge and old ones dissolve.

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With The Dahmer Syndrome, director Øystein Johansen continues his exploration of the obsessive logic of figures such as Dahmer and other so-called “lone wolves”. The performance examines how isolation and obsession reinforce one another and how fascination and horror can coexist in the gaze of the spectator.

“Inspired by the story of Jeffrey Dahmer, I wanted to create a performance that reflects on the demarcation lines between sexuality and perversion, between observation and voyeurism. At what point does the search for intimacy become violent? Can perversity be beautiful, and why are we — as spectators — so fascinated by it?”

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