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THE
GORE AND GLORY OF THE GRAND GUIGNOL
By Russell Blackwood
From CALLBOARD Magazine
April, 1996
A Chinese torture master rips a
strip of flesh from his victims naked back. A lunatic gouges
out a young woman's eye with a knitting needle. A French
soldier's hands are chopped off by the enemy. What's more,
all these atrocities and more have been witnessed by thousands
of onlookers during a 60 year rein of terror that shocked
and stunned Paris. Thankfully, no one got hurt. This murder,
mayhem, and mutilation was staged for the enjoyment of ticket
buyers at Theatre du Grand Guignol. Indeed, the victims
and villains in these gruesome crimes are actors, playwrights,
and prop masters who created plays so horrific that a doctor
was stationed in the lobby to revive fainting spectators.
Established in 1897, the Grand
Guignol quickly gained a reputation for staging one-acts.
By far the most notorious was their repertoire of horror
plays. The theatre's fame was so great that for many years
Parisian guidebooks hailed it among the city's most popular
attractions rivaled only by Maxim's, the Louvre, the Eiffel
Tower, and legalized brothels. History has remembered this
fact and the phrase "Grand Guignol" has become
synonymous with over the top bloodletting and gore.
Mel Gordon, currently a theatre
Professor at U.C. Berkeley, is one of America's foremost
authorities on the Grand Guignol. His book The Grand Guignol
-- Theatre of Fear and Terror (Da Capo Press, 1997), chronicles
the history, repertoire, and special effects of this unique
theatre. Mel has let me in on some of the secrets that artists
employed to induce sheer terror in an audience.
The stage trickery of the Grand
Guignol was a closely guarded secret. Some of the effects
were even patented. Mel says "The secrecy probably
had more to with concealing their simplicity of design than
a desire to prevent other theatres from using them."
Old publicity photos picture oddly proportioned daggers
and wounds that are no more than a streak of blood across
an actress' neck. Hardly the kind of effects that could
frighten an audience. He reminds me that "the audience
wanted to believe in what they were seeing, the acting was
intense, and there was 20 to 40 minutes of suspense and
dread leading up to the bloodletting."
The theatre itself is eerie and
foreboding. Built as a convent in 1786, the interior is
decorated with grinning cherubs carved into the beams of
the vaulted ceiling. The front doors are solid oak and cut
with a pseudo-gothic pattern. The building served as a blacksmith's
shop, a fanatical preacher's pulpit, and an artist's studio
before being converted to a 285 seat theatre complete with
a balcony. The twenty-by-twenty foot stage was so close
to the audience that one critic joked that you could shake
hands with an actor during the show without leaving your
front row pew. There's even a confessional booth from which
some say you could hear the prayers of nuns as grizzly events
were enacted on stage. Sets were often dimly lit with faint
hints of red and green light around the proscenium. An orchestration
of live sound effects, painstakingly rehearsed for each
play, added to the gloom and impending horror.
Blood flowed like water at the
Grand Guignol. A heated mixture, half carmine and half glycerin,
is the base of the blood recipe. It drips and splatters
like fresh blood, but will coagulate after just a few minutes
to form scabs. Mel says that in later years, as money got
tight at the theatre "Large body wounds were limited
to women (smaller costumes to clean) and head wounds for
men (less hair to clean)." On the subject of weapons
he says "Daggers with retractable blades spurted blood
when the blood-filled handles were squeezed." A turkey
baster, rubber ball, or an eye dropper could provide a good
base for building a blood squirting knife. A knife can also
penetrate an arm or leg. Not unlike the old arrow through
the head gag, a prop knife can be separated from it's handle
by a curved metal clasp that can then be fitted around an
actors limb.
Mel has several suggestions on
how to gouge out an eye. A female victim can be fitted with
a plaster or latex quarter-mask (holding a sheep iris, lactose
powder, and blood capsule) which is partly concealed by
her hair hanging over that side of her face. The sheep's
eye can be popped out of the mask with a knitting needle
or even a bare hand. He grins and says "If it's a Veronica
Lake hair style and the sheep iris matches her real eye
it's a beautiful effect." Another eye-popping effect
is to scoop it out with a spoon. A sheep's eye can be hidden
in the hollowed out handle or in a tight fitting sleeve
on the handle of the spoon. The actor doing the scooping
conceals it in his grasping fist and squeezes the eyeball
out of the handle and into the bowl of the spoon. Mel says
"Using an animal eye works best because it bounces
a bit if it hits the floor." One method even produces
an eyeball skewered on the end of a jack-knife. The retractable
blade of the knife moves into the handle which squirts blood
when pressed against the victim's face. Affixed to the end
of the handle is a piece of adhesive "skin" (latex
or lamb skin) with a slit to allow the blade to move through
it. As the handle is pressed against the victims eye the
sticky "skin" is pressed to the eyelid leaving
a gory empty eye socket. When the knife handle is pulled
away the blade is released back into position. The actor
with the knife squeezes a air pump in the handle and a rubber
eyeball on the end of the knife inflates. The eye appears
to be impaled on the tip of the knife. Many magic shops
sell an inflatable ball and pump mechanism that could work
as a base for this prop.
Cutting off a man's hand is easier
than it sounds. Stiffen a glove with glue water so it holds
it's shape and paint it like a real hand. The actor wearing
the glove should still be able to move his fingers a bit.
When the hand is chopped off the "chopper" removes
the glove and the "chopee" moves his hand up into
his cuff which is reinforced with a cardboard tube and fitted
with a blood pack. The stiffened glove should hold it's
shape perfectly as the unwilling amputee writhes in pain.
Many plays outside of the repertoire
of the Grand Guignol call for realistic scenes of murder
and mutilation. Look at Shakespeare, for instance. The secrets
of the Grand Guignol coupled with a prop master's own skill
and ingenuity can provide an arsenal of horrific tricks
and turns. The effects can be so startling that it can surpass
what we see in movies. After all, our audience witnesses
the crime.
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