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The Eldritch Plays
Gothic, witty and theatrical, the plays in this collection will introduce readers to an irresistible and highly original dramatic voice. Visit Eric Woolfe's world?if you dare! The three works included in The Eldritch Plays are populated by some of the wildest creatures ever seen on a Canadian stage. Sideshow of the Damned brings us a panoply of Woolfe mad scientists, werewolves, would-be necromancers and ghouls?juxtaposed against the quotidian, to great comic effect. In The Strange and Eerie Memoirs of Billy Wuthergloom , a small boy leads a fairly ordinary life until puberty, a succubus, and a strange friend named Herskill Fischmascher take him places he never wanted to go. And in the critically-acclaimed Grendelmaus , two co-workers have to deal with an evil mouse made immortal by eating the dead flesh of Grendel?as well as a finicky work supervisor, an eccentric mother, an ancient book of spells, and, naturally, love. Woolfe's unique style uses live actors combined with puppets, simple stylized special effects, humour, and horror.
176 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 2004
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October 20, 2024Sideshow of the Damned: A kind of anthology schlock horror play, Sideshow of the Damned brings together four ghoulish tales presided over by a demented carnival barker who serves as narrator. The individual episodes themselves vary in tone and style, but they're all gruesome. Ranging from a mad scientist who impregnates a woman with roach-human hybrid babies, through a vampire-werewolf couple who turn the tables on a murderous fortune-teller and her henchman, through zombies and lesbian nuns, these stories draw on a set of conventional and unconventional horror tropes, combined with a healthy dash of gallows humor and ironic referentiality to other works of horror, either famous or schlocky in their own right.
https://youtu.be/IpJ6v3wu3UM
The Strange & Eerie Memoirs of Billy Wuthergloom: This is a spooky coming of age play, focusing on the early life of a boy named Billy Wuthergloom and his slightly insane best friend Hirskill Fischmacher. Billy is constantly subject to paranormal activity, and Hirskill Fischmacher (always referred to with both names, as Billy points out) somehow has both the knowledge and ability to help him out. Most of this paranormal activity is somehow associated with sexuality/puberty and the growing up process. For instance, there's a naked succubus who lives under Billy's bed, and she becomes part of his first nocturnal emission, and Hirskill Fischmacher ends up drowning himself to "marry" a ghost woman who lives in a pond, whom he had been in love with for years after first seeing her when he and Billy were kids.
The performance style is interesting, based on the descriptions in the stage directions, because it combines live action and puppetry. Woolfe's distinct theatrical style combines both live performance and puppets, so this is pretty typical of him. Woolfe himself played Billy in the original performance run, and all of the other characters were played by puppets. It's interesting to imagine a horror-themed play in which most of the actors are puppets, since (apart from some ventriloquist dummies), puppets generally aren't all that scary. And, to be fair, I don't think this play is supposed to inspire terror as such, but more a sense of unease with the recognizable process of growing into adulthood.
https://youtu.be/NcKH4xo1BTA
Grendelmaus: This is definitely my least favorite of the three plays in this collection, though it does have interesting elements. Like the other plays, it's got a lot of connections with other literary texts, especially Beowulf, Moby Dick, and the world of H.P. Lovecraft. And some of the demonic elements are interesting, but overall I don't find the plot that exciting. Basically, this play tells the story of Ishmael, a shy young man who is in love with the outgoing Rachel. He has been in love with her since they were in high school, and now they've reconnected at a dead-end job in their thirties. However, Ishmael is also dealing with Grendelmaus, a white mouse who had fed on the flesh of Grendel after the monster had been killed by Beowulf. The mouse subsequently became a powerful demon who roams the earth doing evil deeds--including a rip-off of a story from Melmoth the Wanderer--and ends up in Ishmael's apartment. As Ishmael's relationship with Rachel proceeds, he's increasingly worried about erectile dysfunction brought on by anxiety about Grendelmaus, and so when an old man in a hardware store offers him a magic book (the Necronomicon, written by Abdul Alhazred in Lovecraft's works) that can destroy Grendelmaus, but when Ishmael instead uses the djinn he summons to cure his ED so he can have sex with Rachel, the book falls into Grendelmaus' hands. Grendelmaus uses the power to become Ishmael's boss, get him fired, get him evicted, and steal Rachel. When Ishmael proves unable to defeat Grendelmaus, he goes to sea for twelve years, during which time Rachel and Grendelmaus enter what's ultimately an unhappy marriage.
https://youtu.be/fvEPTAUIdmE
https://youtu.be/IpJ6v3wu3UM
The Strange & Eerie Memoirs of Billy Wuthergloom: This is a spooky coming of age play, focusing on the early life of a boy named Billy Wuthergloom and his slightly insane best friend Hirskill Fischmacher. Billy is constantly subject to paranormal activity, and Hirskill Fischmacher (always referred to with both names, as Billy points out) somehow has both the knowledge and ability to help him out. Most of this paranormal activity is somehow associated with sexuality/puberty and the growing up process. For instance, there's a naked succubus who lives under Billy's bed, and she becomes part of his first nocturnal emission, and Hirskill Fischmacher ends up drowning himself to "marry" a ghost woman who lives in a pond, whom he had been in love with for years after first seeing her when he and Billy were kids.
The performance style is interesting, based on the descriptions in the stage directions, because it combines live action and puppetry. Woolfe's distinct theatrical style combines both live performance and puppets, so this is pretty typical of him. Woolfe himself played Billy in the original performance run, and all of the other characters were played by puppets. It's interesting to imagine a horror-themed play in which most of the actors are puppets, since (apart from some ventriloquist dummies), puppets generally aren't all that scary. And, to be fair, I don't think this play is supposed to inspire terror as such, but more a sense of unease with the recognizable process of growing into adulthood.
https://youtu.be/NcKH4xo1BTA
Grendelmaus: This is definitely my least favorite of the three plays in this collection, though it does have interesting elements. Like the other plays, it's got a lot of connections with other literary texts, especially Beowulf, Moby Dick, and the world of H.P. Lovecraft. And some of the demonic elements are interesting, but overall I don't find the plot that exciting. Basically, this play tells the story of Ishmael, a shy young man who is in love with the outgoing Rachel. He has been in love with her since they were in high school, and now they've reconnected at a dead-end job in their thirties. However, Ishmael is also dealing with Grendelmaus, a white mouse who had fed on the flesh of Grendel after the monster had been killed by Beowulf. The mouse subsequently became a powerful demon who roams the earth doing evil deeds--including a rip-off of a story from Melmoth the Wanderer--and ends up in Ishmael's apartment. As Ishmael's relationship with Rachel proceeds, he's increasingly worried about erectile dysfunction brought on by anxiety about Grendelmaus, and so when an old man in a hardware store offers him a magic book (the Necronomicon, written by Abdul Alhazred in Lovecraft's works) that can destroy Grendelmaus, but when Ishmael instead uses the djinn he summons to cure his ED so he can have sex with Rachel, the book falls into Grendelmaus' hands. Grendelmaus uses the power to become Ishmael's boss, get him fired, get him evicted, and steal Rachel. When Ishmael proves unable to defeat Grendelmaus, he goes to sea for twelve years, during which time Rachel and Grendelmaus enter what's ultimately an unhappy marriage.
https://youtu.be/fvEPTAUIdmE
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