About

The Serial Killer Series
Velma Barfield
John Wayne Gacy
Ted Bundy
Henry Lee Lucas

In 1978, two of America’s most iconic serial killers, Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, were
apprehended. They remained in the public consciousness throughout the early 1980’s as the
resulting investigations, trials, and true crime books followed. Also in 1978, another serial
killer was apprehended, though she never became a household name. Velma Barfield was
a grandmotherly, religious woman on death row when Iris Rose read her story in the Village
Voice in 1984. Female serial killers are rare, and purists would not even consider Mrs.
Barfield a serial killer, since she did not fit the usual psychological profile, but she did poison
at least five people to cover up thefts motivated by her drug habit. Iris, who had previously
adapted true crime stories in House of Jahnke and Camden, found Velma’s story
compelling, and she decided to adapt it, along with Bundy’s and Gacy’s, to make an
evening-length piece.

An early proposal Iris wrote before her concept was finalized shows that she originally
intended to include David Berkowitz, a.k.a. “Son of Sam,” who was apprehended in 1977, as
a fourth killer to round out the series. But in 1986, as she learned more about Henry Lee
Lucas, the drifter whose confession to 600 murders was eventually considered largely a
hoax, she changed her mind and decided to include him instead.

Each section of The Serial Killer Series was a solo performance, approximately 20 minutes
long. This was the length of both House of Jahnke and Camden, and Iris felt it was a good
amount of time to tell a condensed but powerful story. Velma Barfield’s and John Wayne
Gacy’s stories were monologues told from the killer’s point of view, but Ted Bundy’s and
Henry Lee Lucas’ sections presented the killers’ voices as well as others from the worlds they
inhabited: police, victims, media, etc. – all provided by a single actor. Joshua Fried created
a score for each of the killers, as he had done for Iris’ Camden and for Chazz Dean and
James Siena’s Case, varying the musical style to suit the personality of each killer: a kind of
film soundtrack for Barfield’s tragic story; a circus-like theme for Gacy, the “killer clown”; a
harsh dance groove of breathing and the word “blood” for Bundy; and clips from the radio
for Lucas, the drifter.

Iris, of course, played Velma Barfield, and her frequent collaborators Chazz Dean and Kurt
Fulton were Henry Lee Lucas and Ted Bundy, respectively. But for John Wayne Gacy, Iris
asked John Flansburgh, singer and guitarist for the two-man band They Might Be Giants to
play the role. Watchface had frequently served as their opening act in 1986, and Iris had
seen John perform the ominous song “You’ll Miss Me” many times. She was convinced that
he had the ability to embody the repellent Gacy. She was initially unaware that he had
never acted before, but was ultimately unconcerned, since she believed that the task-
oriented Watchface process could be used successfully with anyone who possessed stage
presence and creativity, regardless of conventional actor training or experience.

The show opened with Velma Barfield’s story. In five linear, 3- to 5-minute narratives, she
described: her childhood with an abusive father and passive mother; a marriage that initially
rescued her but eventually devolved into its own form of hell; her growing dependence on
prescription drugs; “Drugs” script her eventual capture; and, finally, her spiritual redemption in
prison.

In contrast, John Wayne Gacy’s manic, compartmentalized life was depicted in twenty
distinct sub-sections covering topics like: his job in a mortuary; his fixation on an alpha male
police officer named Jack after whom he modeled an alter ego; his first, possibly
accidental, murder “Jack #1” script; his typical daily routine “Jack #8” script; and his desire to
have Rod Steiger play him in the movie of his life.

The Ted Bundy section had less dialogue than the others and instead relied on Kurt’s
exceptional movement ability to express both the character and the horror that he wrought.
The shortest of his seven scenes on paper, for instance, consisted of only three lines:

Kurt:
How could they have slept through it?
Oak bark?
Holding a plastic pail to catch the blood gushing from her face.

However, these lines were merely punctuation in a movement tour de force that painted a
horrific picture, covering as many of the known details as possible, of Bundy’s lethal
rampage through a sorority house.

For Henry Lee Lucas, Iris chose to create a mosaic of many different times, places, and
characters “Becky” script to portray his random, nomadic life on the road, haunted by
memories, and his later manipulation of authorities in 20 states.

The Serial Killer Series debuted as a literal series of works-in-progress at Dixon Place in
November 1986, premiering one killer per week. It was first performed in its entirety the
following February in the downstairs space at PS 122. In the spring of 1986, Iris’ The End of the
World had been performed as part of the Veselka Festival at PS 122, in the midnight timeslot
after John Kelly’s Born with the Moon in Cancer and David Cale’s The Redthroats. Drawing an
audience at that hour was challenging (and watching the sold-out crowds file out after
David Cale was a bit demoralizing), but PS 122’s Artistic Director, Mark Russell, was impressed
by The End of the World and offered Iris a chance to mount a show in the theater’s downstairs
space at a reasonable hour. She used that opportunity to premiere The Serial Killer Series.
PS 122 program The audience reception was very strong, and Mark Russell hoped to have the
show return to PS 122, though an appropriate time for the revival was never found.

For various reasons, including the fact that the show occurred around the same time as the
release of They Might Be Giants’ first album They Might Be Giants’ album and the increased
touring schedule that required, the show was never performed again in its entirety.

Unfortunately, no videotape of the piece exists. “I always thought we would do The Serial
Killer Series again,” Iris remembers, “and since I believed it was an especially good
representation of Watchface’s style, I wanted to get a really good tape of it – edited, with
multiple cameras and close-ups. But since the show was never redone, I didn’t have that
opportunity. It’s my biggest regret of the Watchface era.”

Iris did perform Velma Barfield on a double bill with Camden during her California tour a
month after the PS 122 performances, and Kurt later performed Ted Bundy at Galerie SAW
Gallery in Ottawa, Canada. The following September in Southern California, Kurt and Chazz
performed Ted Bundy and Henry Lee Lucas at the Oranges/Sardines gallery and
performance space in Los Angeles as part of the Fringe Festival, and at System M in nearby
Long Beach, their home prior to moving to New York.
Fringe Festival brochure
Oranges/Sardines flyer
System M program