Since the theatre closed its doors 40 years ago, the genre has been overlooked by critics and theatre historians. This book considers 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.

The Theatre of the Grand Guignol, which began in turn-of-the-century Paris, celebrated horror and fear. Innocent victims, mangled beauty, insanity, mutilation, depravity and guilt were its primary themes. This text examines its history, themes and methods and summarizes its plots.

A companion to UEP's Grand-Guignol: The French Theatre of Horror (now in its third reprint). London's Grand Guignol was established in the early 1920s at the Little Theatre in the West End. It was a high-profile venture that enjoyed popular success as much as critical controversy.

From the authors of the successful Grand-Guignol and London’s Grand Guignol - also published by UEP – this book includes translations of a further eleven plays, adding significantly to the repertoire of Grand-Guignol plays available in the English language. The emphasis in the translation and adaptation of these plays is once again to foreground the performability of the scripts within a modern context – making Performing Grand-Guignol an ideal acting guide. Hand and Wilson have acquired extremely rare acting copies of plays which have never been published and scripts that were published in the early years of the twentieth century but have not been published since – even in French. Includes plays written by, or adapted from, such notable writers as Octave Mirbeau, Gaston Leroux and St John Ervine as well as examples by Grand-Guignol stalwarts René Berton and André de Lorde. Also included is the 1920s London translation of Blind Man’s Buff written by Charles Hellem and Pol d’Estoc and banned by the Lord Chamberlain. A brief history of the Parisian theatre is also included, for the benefit of readers who have not read the previous books.

The only collection of fiction, and one novel, by Maurice Level, an acknowledged master of horror fiction.

A play by the maestro of Paris' bloody "Grand Guignol" theater of the early 20th century, AT THE TELEPHONE (1924) is a play about a man that leaves his wife, young son, and servants for a business trip, and the horror that ensues afterward. Gripping and macabre like all the Grand Guignol! Cover image found at Pixabay. No attribution is required.