http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Fuxkinhug

I can think of no other living actor who has been the subject of a fiction film, had the film named for him, and consented to play a variation of himself as a character in the film. The movie is “Being John Malkovich,” Spike Jonze’s imaginative, wacky comedy of 1999.

By itself, the movie is testimony to Malkovich’s singular presence as an actor. Malkovich has appeared in nearly 70 motion pictures and in the process has carved out so distinctive a screen persona that he has become in effect the “auteur” of many of the films in which he has appeared. While he occasionally takes a heroic turn, he’s made a mark for himself as a kind of cunning, arrogant Mr. Nasty. As one critic said of Malkovich’s performance as a would-be presidential assassin in “In the Line of Fire” (1993): “Malkovich is always fine but he’s arguably best when he makes your skin crawl.”

Malkovich is a master of evoking an aura of creepiness both fascinating and repugnant. Much of that effect comes from drawling, over-enunciated vocalization of dialogue. David Letterman in 2002 offered a list of the Top 10 Things That Sound Creepy When Said By John Malkovich. (And he did make lines like “I put my jammies on all by myself, mommy!” and “Who wants to be a millionaire?” sound creepy.)

Now Malkovich is the centerpiece of an unusual musical-theatrical collaboration, “The Infernal Comedy: The Confessions of a Serial Killer.” In collaboration with the Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra and two sopranos, Malkovich appears on stage playing real life serial killer Jack Unterweger, who—according to the script’s conceit—has returned from the dead to promote an autobiography written in hell.

Malkovich played serial killer Jack Unterweger onstage in ‘The Infernal Comedy’ (alongside Laura Aiken.)

“The Infernal Comedy” has been touring Europe and the U.S. and recently appeared as a University Musical Society presentation on U-M’s Ann Arbor campus. It was an evening to remember, especially for fans (as I am) of Malkovich. After all, who better to play a serial killer than an actor whose career has redefined the parameters for screen characters who are off-putting and at the same time compelling—even mesmerizing.

After a brief orchestral overture, Malkovich strolls onto the simple set—a desk, a chair, a couple of side stools—placed in front of an on-stage 40 piece orchestra. He wears a white linen suit over an untucked polka dot shirt, swaggering in from stage left with that in-your-face demeanor that is pure Malkovich: an impish, leering expression, button-hole eyes taking in the scene. He opened with references to the Wolverines’ football victory over Minnesota earlier in the day, and as with his performance on Letterman, he made even this small talk sound sinister. Then begins the recounting of the life of Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger, who with no known regrets murdered prostitutes in Europe and the U.S., and who hanged himself in 1994 at the beginning of a second prison term. During his first imprisonment, Unterweger wrote fiction, poetry and drama and became a hero to the Austrian literati, who celebrated his release in 1990—only to see him set out on a killing spree of nine more prostitutes. He strangled all his victims with their brassieres.

Malkovich’s tour-de-force performance is replete with glee and self-aggrandizement as Unterweger lauds his own sexual prowess. Malkovich turns up the temperature with the traits we’ve come to know so well through big-screen closeups: leering, blank stares, lengthy silent pauses, bursts of anger, the baring of teeth. Disquieting as usual, but riveting.

In the most shocking moments of the evening, Unterweger taunts and cajoles the sopranos Sophie Klussman and Claire Meghnagi, who represent many women from his past, and uses them as mannequins to demonstrate how he victimized women. The manhandling of the singers was, to say the least, eye-averting.

John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer in ‘Dangerous Liaisons.’

When the evening was over it was again clear that Malkovich, while capable of broad diversity as an actor, had created a stage character that was essentially a composite of some of his more notorious screen characters. I thought of Malkovich as the cunning, manipulative philanderer Valmont in Stephen Frear’s “Dangerous Liaisons” (1988). In that film, without shame, Malkovich joins Glenn Close in a duplicitous scheme to ruin a virtuous woman.

I was also reminded of his portrayal of sociopath Tom Ripley in “Ripley’s Game” (2003). But especially of his role as Cape Town University poetry professor David Lurie in the 2009 film adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s novel “Disgrace.” The professor’s philandering leads him into an affair with one of his students. Called before the University’s hearing board, Lurie remains unrepentant—expressing sacrosanct belief in the sexual impulses that resulted in the act for which he is being dismissed. It is Malkovich again offering up an unsavory, sexually arrogant character who flaunts the hurt he has caused his young student.That was the core essence of Jack Unterweger in “The Infernal Comedy,” a character who has no remorse for the women who fell victim to his lethal charm—a Mr. Nasty realized only as John Malkovich could illuminate him.

Are you a Malkovich fan? Which of his roles or movies did you admire most? Share your thoughts in the comments section.