Well, that was disturbing, but that was always the point. The elaborately turned out goth audience should’ve been a give away, because in the style of the Grand Guignol this was properly macabre and grotesque.
Le Théâtre du Grand Guignol had its heyday in Paris from 1897 until 1962 where it specialised in over the top horror. Nothing was off the table: stories about incest, murder and amputation were de rigeur and the grimmer the better. Suffice to say, the good guys don’t win in these yarns. It’s way more complex than that.
So, tonight’s little fable was about Sandrine Moreaux. Poor Sandrine is disfigured but has her heart set on making her way to the Grand Guignol where she will be at home with the other grotesquery. What follows is basically a tale about bullying, mental ill-health and family massacre. Along the way there’s also a lot of cutting and not in a pissy emo way either.
The stage is actually quite beautiful (like a mental magic shop) and the ensemble are suitably horrific: the dude relaying the yarn has what looks like a gaping, rotting wound for a mouth and the lad on drums appears to have had his eyes poked out. Nightmares all round peeps. It’s also a reminder that a morbid attraction to horror is nothing new – people have always loved scaring the shit out of themselves for entertainment.
BY MEG CRAWFORD
