Grand-Guignol: The French Theatre of Horror

by Richard J. Hand, Michael Wilson

The Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Paris (1897-1962) achieved a legendary reputation as the 'Theatre of Horror,' a venue displaying such explicit violence and blood-curdling terror that a resident doctor was employed to treat the numerous spectators who fainted each night. Indeed, the phrase 'grand guignol' has entered the language to describe any display of sensational horror.

 

Since the theatre closed its doors forty years ago, the genre has been overlooked by critics and theatre historians. This book reconsiders the importance and influence of the Grand-Guignol within its social, cultural and historical contexts, and is the first attempt at a major evaluation of the genre as performance. It gives full consideration to practical applications and to the challenges presented to the actor and director.

 

The book also includes oustanding new translations by the authors of ten Grand-Guignol plays, none of which have been previously available in English. The presentation of these plays in English for the first time is an implicit demand for a total reappraisal of the grand-guignol genre, not least for the unexpected inclusion of two very funny comedies.

Genres: Nonfiction, Horror, History, Theatre, Plays, Art, Drama

276 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

1ST TIER: - an anthology of translated examples of plays as featured at the notorious Gran Guignol theater in Paris from roughly the early 20th Century to the 1950s. A good sampling of plays (translated with the intention for them to be performable), and some extremely good contextual material in the concentrated essays that open the book. Highly recommended.

2CND TIER - an extremely interesting exploration of the Grand-Guignol Theater as a concept, this goes far beyond merely presenting 10 of the original plays in translation, the essays do an extremely satisfying job of examining the Grand Guignol from every angle: its origin in Naturalist theater, the theory of a "hot and cold shower" approach to the audience (ie presenting a series of alternating 1 act comedy and horror plays), how the plays steered clear of the supernatural (much like Decadence and the conte cruel before them) and instead presented tales of madness, torture and human violence, the importance of setting, effects, acting, staging, lighting and lack of music in the plays. All very interesting. It was likely the rise of horror films that killed the Grand-Guignol, as is also discussed. Just a great book. I would suggest reading the opening the essays, then the plays, and THEN the play's introductions as the latter are full of spoilers.

3rd TIER - A quick overview of the plays (with little to no spoilers)
There are only three "good but a little flawed" plays here. 1905's "The Lighthouse Keepers" ("Gardiens de phare") by Paul Augier & Paul Cloquemin is a one act set in a lighthouse with a father and son just taking up their month's duty. But as a storm descends, the son begins to express his boredom and nervousness... or is it something more? Perfectly serviceable. "The Final Kiss" ("le Baiser dans la nuit") by Maurice Level from 1912 gives us a man who was the successful target of an acid attack by a jilted lover who is now having his hideously disfigured face treated, but does he really forgive his attacker (who was given a light sentence due to a talented lawyer) when she returns to see him? This is a pretty direct, hideous play, the kind of thing I thought ALL Grand Guignol plays were (but which this book dissuaded me of the belief) - plays very much like a stage version of those notorious Eerie Publication comics of the 70s - raw, lurid and disturbing. Finally, Octave Mirbeau's notorious decadent novel The Torture Garden (Le Jardin de supplices) is turned into a three act stage play from 1922. A tale of the corrupting influences of sex, sadism and espionage set against an orientalist background.

All the rest of the plays are really solid and very enjoyable reads. "Jack" (a retitling of "Lui!" by Oscar Méténier so as to evoke Jack The Ripper) from 1897 is an excellent example of "early Grand Guignol" as the story if predicated more on suspense and immanent threat than any actual climactic violence. A prostitute in a brothel (already, an example of the earthy, realistic settings that drew audiences) reads about a local killing by a (presumed) madman who is wanted by the police, and then finds that she suspects her current customer is actually the killer, playing a cat-and-mouse game with her. As might be expected, probably more effective as performed than read (which pretty much should be understood as a default for everything here), but as an example of "stage suspense," interesting in its own right - could be seen as a precursor to things like "Sorry, Wrong Number". André de Lorde & Eugène Morel's "The Ultimate Torture" ("La Dernière Torture") from 1904 is set during the Boxer Rebellion in China, as a diplomatic building and its rag-team residents (a diplomat, soldiers, some women) are under siege from the blood-thirsty rebels. The diplomat attempts to keep hope alive even as the situation gets progressively worse, with real (and relayed) tales of impending torture... The intro makes the point that the siege scenario shares a lot with Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, while I couldn't help notice the echoes of the screen adaptation of King's THE MIST. Good stuff. "Chop-Chop! Or The Guillotine" ("La Veuve" from 1906) by Eugène Héros and Léon Abric is a story of a cuckolded man, the man who cuckolding him, and a wife with a very morbid fetish... and the new guillotine exhibit at the museum. It's a fun (and funny) read and a very wise choice for the editors to include... and that's all I'll say.

I initially rated "Tics, Or Doing The Deed" ("Apres Coup!... ou Tics" from 1908) by René Berton a little lower but this absurd sex-farce just stuck in my head. Would be a delight to see staged. "In The Darkroom" ("Sous la lumière rouge" from 1911) by Maurice Level & Étienne Rey is a 3 act work with Level adapting (and lengthening) his own short story of a man distraught by his beautiful wife's death, and the horror that the last photo of her on her deathbed exposes. A good thriller! "Euthanasia" (L’Euthanasie, ou le Devoir de tuer" from 1923) by René Berton presents a realistic, philosophical medical discussion about what is the proper course to take for a patient in excruciating pain who will certainly die, but is likely to last long enough to end up making his wife destitute. A good read. Finally, from 1929, Jean Aragny & Francis Neilson's 2 Act "The Kiss of Blood" ("Le Baiser de sang") features a surgeon accosted by a man who demands that his index finger be amputated as it is causing him maddening pain, or he will kill himself. But a follow-up visit there is much more going on. It opens (as discussed in the introduction) with an atypical moment of abrupt gruesomeness (atypical in that it is not slowly built up to and made the climax). Then, there is a small, but gruesome event. But the climax in the second act really sends the thing into near pulp fiction territory. Enjoyable.

Just an all-around fascinating book.

[Alexandre Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

A maioria das peças é excelente, mas uma ou duas são um tanto bobas. Prefácio informativo mas ocasionalmente imbecil (fazendo alusões malucas a racismo, colonialismo, sexismo etc).

[Woolrich13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the best accessible survey of the Grand Guignol, the theatre of horror that thrived in the Pignalle neighborhood of Paris starting in the late 19th century. The authors survey seminal Guignol source authors like Maurice Level and Andre de Lorde as well as including full texts of translated plays. There are plenty of rare illustrations and photographs also. This is a highly recommended book, if you are interested in this theatre genre.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plays are nothing special, but the scholarship is; perceptive, enthusuastic criticism that connects this material to contemporary cinema, French literature and history, and the actual history of these pieces in performance enlivens what is otherwise a collection of sketchy, shallow, aesthetically impoverished scenes and one-acts. The plays by Maurice Level (including his nifty piece "The Final Kiss," a short and sweet revenge thriller that delivers the kind of gore and guts and lust and melodrama that you might expect from the Grand-Guignol) come closest to something approaching literary worth, but even they fall just short.

[Ryan Ervin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very much like reading a grad student thesis, both in its construction and content. There's a lot to it that an experienced theatre practitioner - even one with no background in the theatre of horror - would find simplistic. This may be due to that fact that it was written 20 years ago, and the authors may have more depth to their writing at this point, but there is a lot of energy spent citing the work of others.

Many reviews commended the plays that were included in the second half but I found that the sampling did not showcase the horror elements that were described in the first part.

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent read for theatre academics or anyone generally interested in the Grand Guignol. Hand and Wilson provide a great introduction and brief summary of what the Grand Guignol was, and their translations of the plays are for the most part very good. Their prefaces before each play were particularly useful and informative, offering not only more context but also broader theatre theories to the works.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject matter and I feel it was a great place to start for my own research into the Grand Guignol.

[Samuel Wharton · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s amazing to learn about old techniques. There is an audience for this kind of theatre today and it should be brought back in some respects, some of it is a bit too far for a contemporary audience. But for lovers of horror films, you should read this book to see where it all (arguably) started.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad they included the play scripts and analyses - a lot more to these plays than I had originally given them credit.

[R.G. Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

The informational, expository section of Hand & Wilson’s Grand-Guignol: The French Theatre of Horror is dry, dry, dry, reading as it does more like an academic thesis than a commercially published book of interest to genre aficionados . Tantalizing in its many notes and references to other sources, both print (notably Mel Gordon’s 1997 book on the Grand-Guignol , which I highly recommend as a history of the theatre) and cinema, Hand & Wilson’s book serves better as a guide for what else one should read or view if one wishes to acquaint oneself with the tradition of the Grand-Guignol. While the book does address the craft and practice of the Grand-Guignol—the authors are principal lecturers in drama at the University of Glamorgan—it is the presentation of ten actual plays produced at the Grand-Guignol (or adapted from those that did) that is the true revelation of this book. Hand & Wilson’s introductions to the plays are spoiler-filled (after reading the first intro and play, I began reading the plays first and the intros after), if but they do dovetail nicely with the rest of the book, providing interesting interpretive “lessons” on each play as seen through the lens of theatre craft presented earlier in the book. For those such as myself with an interest in the Grand-Guignol, I recommend beginning with Mel Gordon’s book before picking up Hand & Wilson—but do pick up this book if only for the remarkable look into the Grand-Guignols’s plays themselves.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books that is fascinating and repelling at the same time. People doing plays about people being tortured and killed in grisly ways? I guess all I can say is that the French are strange. But I read the book, so I can't judge.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed and informative, contains a large section on the historic background and technical aspects of the Grand Guignol and ten plays, each with a detailed introduction and background.

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good read and very thorough, if brief, summary of this famous theater and the plays it produced. I was always interested in learning about them and that interest has been satiated.