A very interesting and informative site on Le Theatre du Grand Guignol, the desecrated chapel turned intimate shoebox of a theater in Paris that specialized in horrific playlets brimming with gore and sadism. Here's a description of one such play:
The innocent Louise is unjustly locked in an asylum with several insane women. A nurse assigned to protect her blithely leaves for a staff party as soon as Louise falls asleep. The insane women decide that a cuckoo bird is imprisoned in Louise's head and and one gouges out her eye with a knitting needle. The other crazy women are freaked and burn the gouger's face off on a hot plate.
Once a major Parisian tourist attraction, it closed in 1962 when more graphic horror films and the grue of real-life rendered the Grand Guignol's little shows and presentations quaint and campy. However, the idea of presenting theatrical beheadings, disembowelings and the like still continue with troupes like the Thrillpeddlers in San Francisco, who translate and adapt original plays from the Grand Guignol's repetroire, and present original pieces of ghastliness as well.
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