Grand Guignol
Encyclopedia
Quartier Pigalle
Pigalle is an area in Paris around the Place Pigalle, on the border between the 9th and the 18th arrondissements. It is named after the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Pigalle ....
area of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(at 20 bis, rue Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962 it specialized in naturalistic horror shows. Its name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral
Amorality
Amorality is an absence of, indifference towards, or disregard for moral beliefs. Any entity that is not sentient may be considered amoral. In addition, it can be argued that sentient but non-human creatures, like dogs, have no concept of morality and are therefore amoral...
horror entertainment, a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre (for instance Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, and possibly George Peele, believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593. It is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy, and is often seen as his attempt to emulate the violent and bloody revenge plays of his contemporaries, which were...
and Webster's The White Devil
The White Devil
The White Devil is a revenge tragedy from 1612 by English playwright John Webster . A notorious failure when it premiered, Webster complained the play was acted in the dead of winter before an unreceptive audience. The play's complexity, sophistication and satire made it a poor fit with the...
) to today's splatter film
Splatter film
A splatter film or gore film is a subgenre of horror film that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. These films, through the use of special effects and excessive blood and guts, tend to display an overt interest in the vulnerability of the human body and the...
s.
Theatre
Oscar Méténier
Oscar Méténier was a French playwright and novelist. In 1897 he founded Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Paris, planning it as a space for naturalist performance.-Life:...
, who planned it as a space for naturalist
Naturalism (art)
Naturalism in art refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting. The Realism movement of the 19th century advocated naturalism in reaction to the stylized and idealized depictions of subjects in Romanticism, but many painters have adopted a similar approach over the centuries...
performance. With 293 seats, the venue was the smallest in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. A former chapel, the theater's previous life was evident in the boxes — which looked like confessionals — and in the angels over the orchestra.
The theater owed its name to Guignol
Guignol
Guignol is the main character in a French puppet show which has come to bear his name.Although often thought of as children's entertainment, Guignol's sharp wit and linguistic verve have always been appreciated by adults as well, as shown by the motto of a prominent Lyon troupe: "Guignol amuses...
, which was a traditional Lyonnaise puppet character, joining political commentary with the style of Punch and Judy
Punch and Judy
Punch and Judy is a traditional, popular puppet show featuring the characters of Mr. Punch and his wife, Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically the anarchic Punch and one other character...
.
The theater's peak was between World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when it was frequented by royalty and celebrities in evening dress.
Important people
Oscar Méténier was the Grand Guignol's founder and original director. Under his direction, the theater produced plays about a class of people who were not considered appropriate subjects in other venues: prostitutes, criminals, street urchins, and others at the lower end of ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
's social echelon.
Max Maurey served as director from 1898 to 1914. Maurey shifted the theater's emphasis to the horror plays it would become famous for and judged the success of a performance by the number of patrons who passed out from shock; the average was two faintings each evening. Maurey discovered André de Lorde
André de Lorde
André de Latour, comte de Lorde was a French playwright, the main author of the Grand Guignol plays from 1901-1926. His evening career was as a dramatist of terror; during daytimes he worked as a librarian in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. He wrote 150 plays, all of them devoted mainly to the...
, who would become the most important playwright for the theatre.
André de Lorde was the theater's principal playwright from 1901 to 1926. He wrote at least 100 plays for the Grand Guignol and collaborated with experimental psychologist Alfred Binet
Alfred Binet
Alfred Binet was a French psychologist who was the inventor of the first usable intelligence test, known at that time as the Binet test and today referred to as the IQ test. His principal goal was to identify students who needed special help in coping with the school curriculum...
to create plays about insanity, one of the theater's frequently recurring themes.
Camille Choisy served as director from 1914 to 1930. He contributed his expertise in special effects and scenery to the theater's distinctive style.
Paula Maxa was one of the Grand Guignol's best-known performers. From 1917 to the 1930s, she performed most frequently as a victim and was known as "the most assassinated woman in the world". During her career at the Grand Guignol, Maxa's characters were murdered more than 10,000 times in at least 60 different ways and raped at least 3,000 times.
Benjamin Muratore was one of the most successful actors in the history of the Grand Guignol theatre. His most famous performance was his portrayal of Bernard in André de Lorde's The Ultimate Torture.
Jack Jouvin served as director from 1930 to 1937. He shifted the theater's subject matter, focusing performances not on gory horror but psychological drama. Under his leadership the theater's popularity waned; and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, it was not well-attended.
Charles Nonon was the theater's last director.
Plays
At the Grand Guignol, patrons would see five or six plays, all in a style which attempted to be brutally true to the theatre's naturalisticNaturalism (art)
Naturalism in art refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting. The Realism movement of the 19th century advocated naturalism in reaction to the stylized and idealized depictions of subjects in Romanticism, but many painters have adopted a similar approach over the centuries...
ideals. The plays were in a variety of styles, but the most popular and best-known were the horror plays, featuring a distinctly bleak worldview as well as notably gory special effects in their notoriously bloody climaxes. These plays often explored the altered states, like insanity, hypnosis, panic, under which uncontrolled horror could happen. Some of the horror came from the nature of the crimes shown, which often had very little reason behind them and in which the evildoers were rarely punished or defeated. To heighten the effect, the horror plays were often alternated with comedies.
Le Laboratoire des Hallucinations, by André de Lorde
André de Lorde
André de Latour, comte de Lorde was a French playwright, the main author of the Grand Guignol plays from 1901-1926. His evening career was as a dramatist of terror; during daytimes he worked as a librarian in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. He wrote 150 plays, all of them devoted mainly to the...
: When a doctor finds his wife's lover in his operating room, he performs a graphic brain surgery rendering the adulterer a hallucinating semi-zombie. Now insane, the lover/patient hammers a chisel into the doctor's brain.
Un Crime dans une Maison de Fous, by André de Lorde
André de Lorde
André de Latour, comte de Lorde was a French playwright, the main author of the Grand Guignol plays from 1901-1926. His evening career was as a dramatist of terror; during daytimes he worked as a librarian in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. He wrote 150 plays, all of them devoted mainly to the...
: Two hags in an insane asylum use scissors to blind a young, pretty fellow inmate out of jealousy.
L'Horrible Passion, by André de Lorde
André de Lorde
André de Latour, comte de Lorde was a French playwright, the main author of the Grand Guignol plays from 1901-1926. His evening career was as a dramatist of terror; during daytimes he worked as a librarian in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. He wrote 150 plays, all of them devoted mainly to the...
: A nanny strangles the children in her care.
Le Baiser dans la nuit by Maurice Level
Maurice Level
Maurice Level , was a French writer of fiction and drama who specialized in short stories of the macabre which were regularly printed in the columns of Paris newspapers and sometimes staged by le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, the repertory company in the Pigalle district devoted to melodramatic...
: A young woman visits the man whose face she horribly disfigured with acid, where he obtains his revenge.
Theatre closing
Audiences waned in the years following World War II, and the Grand Guignol closed its doors in 1962. Management attributed the closure in part to the fact that the theater's faux horrors had been eclipsed by the actual events of the HolocaustThe Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
two decades earlier. "We could never equal Buchenwald
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
," said its final director, Charles Nonon. "Before the war, everyone felt that what was happening onstage was impossible. Now we know that these things, and worse, are possible in reality."
The Grand Guignol building still exists. It is occupied by International Visual Theatre, a company devoted to presenting plays in sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
.
Legacy
Grand Guignol flourished briefly in London in the early 1920s under the direction of Jose LevyJose Levy
Jose Levy was the theatre practitioner who attempted to import the ghoulish and grisly Grand Guignol aesthetic for London audiences.Levy was born in Portsmouth, England and educated at the Ecole de Commerce, Lausanne....
, where it attracted the talents of Sybil Thorndike
Sybil Thorndike
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE was a British actress.-Early life:She was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire to Arthur Thorndike and Agnes Macdonald. Her father was a Canon of Rochester Cathedral...
and Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, and a series of short English "Grand Guignol" films (using original screenplays, not play adaptations) was made at the same time, directed by Fred Paul. Several of the films exist at the BFI National Archive
BFI National Archive
The BFI National Archive is a department of the British Film Institute, and one of the largest film archives in the world. It was originally set up as the National Film Library in 1935; its first curator was Ernest Lindgren. In 1955 its name became the National Film Archive, and in 1992, the...
.
The Grand Guignol was revived once again in London in 1945, under the direction of Frederick Witney, where it ran for two seasons at the Granville Theatre. These included premiers of Witney's own work as well as adaptations of French originals.
In recent years English director writer, Richard Mazda
Richard Mazda
Richard Mazda is a record producer, writer and musician. In later life he also became an actor and director.-Music career:Mazda was one of the co-founders of Poole punk/mod band Tours, singing and playing lead guitar. They signed to Virgin Records in 1979 after selling large quantities of their...
, has re-introduced New York audiences to the Grand Guignol. His acting troupe, The Queens Players, have produced 6 mainstage productions of Grand Guignol plays, and Mazda is writing new plays in the classic Guignol style. The sixth production, Theatre of Fear, included De Lorde's famous adaptation of Poe's The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
"The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" is a comedic short story written by American author Edgar Allan Poe.-Plot summary:The story follows an unnamed narrator who visits a mental institution in southern France known for a revolutionary new method of treating mental illnesses called the...
(Le Systéme du Dr Goudron et Pr Plume) as well as two original plays, Double Crossed and The Good Death alongside The Tell Tale Heart
The Tell-Tale Heart
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the...
.
The 1963 mondo film
Mondo film
A mondo film is an exploitation documentary film, sometimes resembling a pseudo-documentary, usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, and situations...
Ecco includes a scene which may have been filmed at the Grand Guignol theatre during its final years.
American avant-garde composer John Zorn
John Zorn
John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
released an album called Grand Guignol
Grand Guignol (album)
Grand Guignol is the second full-length studio album released by John Zorn's band Naked City in 1992 on the Japanese Avant label. The album followed Torture Garden, which was a compilation of "hardcore miniatures" from Naked City and Grand Guignol...
by Naked City
Naked City (band)
Naked City was an avant-garde music group led by saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Active primarily in New York City from 1988 to 1993, Naked City was initiated by Zorn as a "composition workshop" to test the limits of composition in a traditional rock band lineup...
in 1992, in a reference to "the darker side of our existence which has always been with us and always will be".
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
-based Molotov Theatre Group, established in 2007, is dedicated to preserving and exploring the aesthetic of the Grand Guignol. They have entered two plays into the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
. Their 2007 show, For Boston, won "Best Comedy", and their second show, The Sticking Place, won "Best Overall" in 2008.
Recently formed London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
-based Grand Guignol company Theatre of the Damned, brought their first production to the Camden Fringe
Camden Fringe
The Camden Fringe takes place over 4 weeks in the summer to provide an alternative to the Edinburgh Fringe in one of London's most vibrant and exciting areas....
in 2010 and produced the award nominated Grand Guignol in November of that year. On May 2nd 2011 they announced their new production "Revenge of the Grand Guignol", which is to be staged in London from October 25th at the Courtyard Theatre, London
Courtyard Theatre, London
The Courtyard is a theatre housed in the former public library in Pitfield Street in Hoxton, London Borough of Hackney, England. It is a Grade II listed building....
as part of the London Horror Festival.
Also based in London, Le Nouveau Guignol form the UK's only permanent repatory Grand Guignol company; plays within their current repertoire include French Guignol classics such as "The Final Kiss", "Tics... Or Doing the Deed", "The Lighthouse Keepers", "Private Room Number Six" and "The Kiss of Blood". However, as their company remit also includes encouraging new writing, they have also staged several new plays in the Grand-Guignol style, including "Eating For Two", "Penalty" and "Ways and Means". Le Nouveau Guignol will take part in the London Horror Festival alongside Theatre of the Damned at Courtyard Theatre, London
Courtyard Theatre, London
The Courtyard is a theatre housed in the former public library in Pitfield Street in Hoxton, London Borough of Hackney, England. It is a Grade II listed building....
in November 2011.
The Japanese music group ALI Project created the song "Gesshoku Grand Guignol" as the opening for the Bee-Train anime Avenger, while British rock band Duels also named an instrumental track after the theater.
While the original Grand Guignol attempted to present naturalistic horror, the performances would seem melodramatic and heightened to today's audience. For this reason, the term is often applied to films and plays of a stylised nature with heightened acting, melodrama and theatrical effects such as Sweeney Todd, Sleepy Hollow
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a short story by Washington Irving contained in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., written while he was living in Birmingham, England, and first published in 1820...
, Quills
Quills
Quills is a 2000 period film directed by Philip Kaufman and adapted from the Obie award-winning play by Doug Wright, who also wrote the original screenplay. Inspired by the life and work of the Marquis de Sade, Quills re-imagines the last years of the Marquis' incarceration in the insane asylum at...
, and the Hammer Horror
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
films that went before them.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a suspense novel by author Henry Farrell published in 1960 by Rinehart & Company. The novel has earned a cult following and has been made into several movies.-Plot summary:...
; Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte; What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?
What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?
What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? is a 1969 thriller film directed by Lee H. Katzin with Bernard Girard , and starring Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller and Mildred Dunnock...
; What's the Matter with Helen?
What's the Matter with Helen?
What's the Matter With Helen? is a 1971 thriller film starring Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters.-Plot:The movie starts with a Hearst Metrotone newsreel from the 1930s that tells of the Iowa murder of Ellie Banner by Leonard Hill and Wesley Bruckner...
; Night Watch
Night Watch
A Night Watch is a lookout, guard or patrol at night, in a nautical, military or police context; see Watchman .Night Watch or Nightwatch as a proper name may refer to:-Art:...
; and Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? is a 1971 British horror-thriller film directed by Curtis Harrington and starring Ralph Richardson, Shelley Winters and Mark Lester...
form a sub-branch of the genre called Grande Dame Guignol for its use of aging A-list actresses in sensational horror films.
Kaori Yuki
Kaori Yuki
is a female Japanese manga artist best known for her gothic manga such as Earl Cain, its sequel Godchild, and Angel Sanctuary. Yuki debuted in 1987 with which ran in the manga anthology Bessatsu Hana to Yume published by Hakusensha. Her work is typically serialized in one of Hakusensha's two shōjo...
's manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
Grand Guignol Orchestra is named for the locale.
Further reading
- Gordon, Mel. The Grand Guignol: Theatre of Fear and Terror. Da Capo Press, 1997.
- Hand, Richard, and Michael Wilson. Grand-Guignol: The French Theatre of Horror. University of Exeter Press, 2002.
- Hand, Richard, and Michael Wilson. London's Grand-Guignol and the Theatre of Horror University of Exeter Press, 2007.
- Negovan, Thomas. Grand Guignol: An Exhibition of Artworks Celebrating the Legendary Theater of Terror. Olympian Publishing, 2010.
External links
- Grand Guignol Online - Grand Guignol history, plays, posters, video, articles, and forums (in English).
- NewPlays.org.uk - A brief history of Grand Guignol.
- http://aboutface.org/HTML_Pages/main.html - Aboutface Theatre Company, New York City. Series of Grand Guignol plays and adaptations.
- http://www.nouveauguignol.co.uk - website of Le Nouveau Guignol, London-based Grand-Guignol company. Includes a short history of the Grand Guignol genre and photographs of recent productions