A Philly actor takes on Johnny Depp and his downfall in solo show at Fergie’s

In character as Johnny Depp, actor Jenna Kuerzi asked each audience member at her show at Fergie’s Pub recently what they remembered most about the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Answers ranged from the pirates to the Caribbean. This was a Philly audience, after all.

When my turn came, I pulled a fact from the recesses of my mind that Depp modeled his character, Jack Sparrow, after Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.

An audience member in front of me turned and said: “You’re a fan, aren’t you?”

“No!” I protested.

Not anymore, anyway.

Like many who grew up in the ‘90s and early 2000s, I once liked Depp. But now, after a seemingly never-ending public downfall that includes allegations of spousal abuse, his name makes me cringe — yet I can’t dislodge the derpy Depp facts stuck in my brain or forget how his films made me feel during a formative time in life.

Philly-based Kuerzi, 32, of East Passyunk, plays off all those themes and more in her one-person, one-hour show, Johnny Depp! (A Retrospective on Late-Stage Capitalism), which runs upstairs at Fergie’s through April 16. The show has undergone several iterations since Kuerzi first performed it in a West Philly living room during Philly Theater Week in 2019, and then took it to England and Scotland, but the basic premise remains the same.

“I explain it as we’re joining Johnny Depp on a press tour, where we explore all 102 of his ‘illustrious’ film, television, and video game voice-over appearances to find out what happened,” Kuerzi said.

Part press tour and part PowerPoint presentation, the interactive show begins at the door, when guests receive a “goody bag” of items to use throughout Kuerzi’s performance, including a tiny scroll, a temporary tattoo, and dozens of “gold doubloons” (i.e., plastic coins).

Kuerzi transforms into Depp in front of the audience by drawing a goatee on her chin without using a mirror. The show only gets weirder from there.

At one point, the audience was asked to act like topiaries out of a scene from Edward Scissorhands; at another, we sang a sea shanty together. And throughout the show, we were directed to throw our gold doubloons at Kuerzi if she mentions a Depp performance that we had seen.

“This is kind of like a sporting event, you can yell and throw stuff,” Kuerzi said in an interview. “It’s great.”

Late capitalism, in its modern use, according to the Atlantic magazine, serves as a “catchall phrase for the indignities and absurdities of our contemporary economy, with its yawning inequality and superpowered corporations and shrinking middle class.”

Kuerzi said her show explores how “the arc and inevitable downfall” of Depp’s career is an example of late-stage capitalism.

“When we give somebody too much money, or too much money goes to one place, it can take advantage of that privilege, and often times, the work diminishes because of it,” she said.

During the show as Kuerzi listed Depp’s lavish expenditures (a yacht, 14 residences, 45 luxury vehicles, etc.) and as I threw my gold doubloons at her for the many Depp performances I’d seen, I questioned my own role as an entertainment consumer in funding Depp’s lifestyle of excess.

“No celebrities are perfect, none of them are, most of them aren’t even good, which is annoying, but again, it’s the late-stage capitalism of it all,” Kuerzi said.

When she came up with the idea for the show with her co-creator, Val Dunn, Kuerzi was looking to do two things that scared her: a solo performance and improvisation. The two settled on centering the show on Depp after realizing they were both obsessed with Pirates of the Caribbean as kids and had dressed up as Jack Sparrow for Halloween.

“I know a lot about Johnny Depp and his career was starting to tank around the time we were thinking about this in 2019, so that helped,” Kuerzi said.

In the wake of his public defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard last year, Kuerzi had to entirely revamp the show’s ending.

“Before we had ended on some of the other allegations he was going through, but now they’ve gotten even scarier and more serious, and so the show needed a tonal shift,” she said. “It’s important people don’t think I’m defending bad behavior.”

Far from honoring Depp, the show skewers him, but not everyone has been able to glean that from the title.

“Maybe twice some suburban moms came in and were Team Johnny from 21 Jump Street, and thought this was a celebration of his life, but by the end they were like ‘I didn’t know all those things,’” Kuerzi said.

And for first time this year, someone on social media who hadn’t seen the show tried to petition Fergie’s to cancel it because they were upset about the mention of Depp in the title, Kuerzi said.

“In my head I was like ‘I think we’re more in agreement than you think’ and you’re proving why the title is what it is, because it’s meant to elicit a response,” she said.

The show itself elicits a host of responses, including laughter, nostalgia, shock, and cringe. Kuerzi’s performance isn’t an exact recreation of Depp but rather an important reflection on celebrity, excess, and self-destruction — and our role as consumers of it all.

Johnny Depp! (A Retrospective on Late-Stage Capitalism) runs on select dates upstairs at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom St., through April 16. Tickets are pay-what-you-wish. Show times and reservations can be found at johnny-depp-a-retrospective-on-late-stage-capitalism.ticketleap.com.