Penny Dreadfuls Frankenstein Monster found a home at the Grand Guignol, first home to all monsters.
On last weekendsPenny Dreadful, the Frankenstein Monster told a sad tale.
The creature was born in agony and fear and abandoned on sight.
Left to its own devices.
A witness to the cruelties of Londons streets through a window.
The first kindness the monster encounters in life comes from a drunken actor, long past his prime.
A venue where blood and treachery rule the night, brooms and mops rule the day.
Where audiences cheer as blood runs over pretty ladies and refined gentlemen.
This actor looks past the monsters tortured visage and gives him drink, food and more drink.
Ultimately the actor gives the monster lodging and work.
The work would be in a dark venue.
A venue of blood and treachery.
The monster would find a home.
Its a wonderful story.
Monsters should find homes.
A dark venue where actors became monsters and monsters were free to tell their tales.
Indeed it is there that this monster finds a home:The Grand Guignol.
TheGrand Guignolwas the monsters first home.
Not just Frankensteins creation, but all monsters.
Lowlifes and outcasts who execute the street by day.
Ladies of ill repute who walk the streets at night.
The monsters that dwell deep in the subconscious forever walking in the shadows.
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Le Theatre du Grand-Guignol was a Parisian institution from 1897 to the early sixties.
It is where Twentieth Century horror movies were born.
Silent horror classics took their plots and special effects from here.
It was where the 1935 Peter Lorre filmMad Lovewas set.
It was a living breathing theatre of blood.
It was the inspiration for Anne Rices Theatre des Vampires in herInterview with the Vampirenovels.
Tastefully done, the acting just the right bit over the top.
They had blood galore.
It was the era of Splatterpunk.
At the Pyramid Club, in small theaters, lofts and bookstores.
To take horror back live, where it started and where it belonged.
Live on stage it’s possible for you to improvise.
you might sit in an audience members lap, close enough to slit a throat.
Real terror can be wrought on stage that is only imagined in film.
Oscar Metenier founded Le Theatre du Grand-Guignol in 1894.
The Grand Guignol plays had heroes and heroines from the ignored classes at the time.
Crooks and whores, monsters and the insane.
Ghost ship captains, lighthouse keepers, and evil magicians.
People who were shunned by proper society.
These characters sinned and plotted.
Killed and were killed.
They bled live on stage.
Actors would break character and yell at the crowd.
Audiences came for the experience more than for the show.
TheGrand Guignoldeveloped all the stage tricks that would later be used in film and in all stage gore.
Blood bags, cap guns and knives with blades that squirted blood.
My old man built a retractable stake that oozed blood for us.
Our first special effects wizards came from film.
Then we got magicians.
Horror on stage is a lot like a magic trick gone wrong.
We had a splatter section where people just might get happily covered in the stuff.
None of these ideas were original.
It all started with theGrand Guignol.
The horror was brought toGrand Guignolby Max Maurey, who took over as director in 1898.
During his tenure, which ran until 1914, success wasnt measured by the box office.
It was measured in faintings.
Most of the plays were written by Andre de Lorde.
Ever looming and real.
What a day job.
TheGrand Guignolwould present five or six plays a night.
Shadows that obscured ghostly worlds and stone walls that looked like they poured sweat.
The focus change, coupled with more readily available horror on cinema screens, ate into the theaters popularity.
When there was more readily available horror outside peoples windows during World War II, there were empty seats.
After the world learned about the Holocaust, the terrors of the Grand Guignol seemed quaint.
Charles Nonon, who was the theaters last director, toldLife Magazine, We could never equal Buchenwald.
Before the war, everyone felt that what was happening onstage was impossible.
Now we know that these things, and worse, are possible in reality.
Though reality caught up and surpassed evil illusions, TheGrand Guignolalso weaved sexual fantasy.
They had their own stars.
From 1917 to the 1930s, Maxa was the most assassinated woman in the world.
Maxa was raped at least 3,000 times on stage.
She was murdered more than 10,000 times in over 60 varied methods.
Penny Dreadful, as I said, sets theGrand Guignolin London.
It wasnt Oscar Wilde, creator of Dorian Gray, who contributed, but Sybil Thorndike and Noel Coward.
The Grand Guignol returned to London in 1945.
Frederick Witney directed two seasons of it at the Granville Theatre.
The lastGrand Guignolperformance was 1962s production ofLes Yeux sans visage.
The building is still there.
The International Visual Theatre now performs plays in sign language in it.
Its a great book and I recommend it.
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