Grand Guignol

About

The Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was a theatre in the Pigalle district of Paris (7, cité Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialized in horror shows. Its name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment, a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theater (for instance Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, and Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil), to today's splatter films.

The Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was founded in 1897 by Oscar Métienier, who planned it as a space for naturalist performance. With 293 seats, the coming was the smallest in Paris. A formation chapel, the theater's previous life was obvious in the boxes — which looked like denominations — and in the angels over the orchestra. Through the architecture created frustrating obstacles, the design that was initially a predicate ultimate became beneficial to the marketing of the theater. The opaque furniture and Gothic structures placed sporadically on the walls of the building exude a feeling of ears from the moment of entry. People came to this theater for an experience, not only to see...