Dracula and Disease

“Unclean! Unclean!” Cries Mina Harker as the newly seared scar cools on her forehead. “Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh!” (Stoker, p.231) She is not yet a Vampire, not yet entirely a creature of darkness, but her flesh is unholy and her blood has been infiltrated. As she weeps on the floor, desperately tugging her hair down over her face “as the leper of old his mantle”, she is diseased-she is infected. The words she uses emphasise her separation from society, she is shunned by God and takes on the appearance of the ultimate social outcast. The mark on her brow is as shaming as a body of suppurating leprous flesh. Her malady is supernatural, but its effects are not always far removed from those that conventionally afflicted the heroines of Victorian sensation literature. The Ventnor landlady of M.E Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret gives us the paradigm, “how she [Mrs. Talboys’] had come to Ventnor...and how day by day she had gradually but surely sunk under the fateful malady.” (Braddon, p.41) There is no elaboration on the cause of her death, there was never a chance of recovery. These women rarely die of a specific disease; they far more often die for a reason.

Dame Sybil Thorndike - London's Queen of Screams

As supper is cleared from the table, and their parents relax into the evening, the young Sybil Thorndike and her brother Russell are staging a play. The makeshift theatre they have erected in a spare room of their house in Gainsborough gives Sybil her first taste of the stage, with a gathered audience of household servants, happy to indulge the passions of the two precocious children. It is a play of Sybil’s own devising, a bloody little shocker called The Dentist’s Cure, or, Saw Their Silly Heads Off, consciously or unconsciously cribbed from overheard fragments of Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls, with a cruel tooth-puller in place of macabre Sweeney Todd. Quietly, the maids pray that there will be less murder in this one than in weeks previous, the bloodstains from earlier performances of the similarly improvised The Blood on the Bedpost, The Murder of the White Mice and The Nun’s Revenge having caused some consternation with the mistress of the house. So it was that the future Dame Sybil Thorndike, who would become perhaps the most respected and revered British actress of her age, together with her similarly vaunted brother, displayed her early but enduring enthusiasm for horror on the stage. In 1921 she was quoted as declaring ‘Horrors have been my meat and drink day and night since I was a tiny child’, her comment published in the Grand Guignol Annual Review, the record created by the London theatre in which she starred, where her work and dedication played a major role in its success. This article will examine Sybil’s involvement with London’s Grand Guignol, José Levy’s bold transplantation of the Parisian form to London’s Little Theatre, considering her motives for joining the company, her work within it, the work of her husband, noted director Sir Lewis Casson, and her brother who completed what was a truly family affair, as well as the significance of her participation in the wider cultural history of the Grand Guignol.

Blocking the Blind - Exploring 'Le Baiser dans la nuit' - Part 2

Level’s dreadful scene has been revived and replayed almost as often as the Grand Guignol format itself, and recent years have seen an increasing number of productions across the world. Whether it is the simplicity of its staging, the effectiveness of its writing and set-pieces, its iconic position within the repertoire or simply its relatively widespread distribution in English translation, Le Baiser dans la nuit has remained the poster child of all things Grand Guignol. The purpose of this concluding discussion (the first part of which, dealing with its origin, early history and broad themes, can be found here) is to consider the play in modern performance, and the issues which these revisitations have raised for theatre makers. Rather than attempting anything like a comprehensive investigation of the multitude of 21^st century adaptations, I will instead consider a small number of notable revivals, and focus upon versions which we ourselves have produced, as well as those which we have seen and considered particularly interesting. We have so far considered vitriol vengeance in theory, and it’s time to turn to practice.

Violence and Vitriol - Exploring 'Le Baiser dans la nuit' - Part 1

The curtain rises on a pitiful scene, as a young man, a doctor and a nurse debate the condition of a horrifically mutilated patient. Though his back is to us, we can see the blindfold over his eyes, and the blood and pus dripping down his cheeks. He has been attacked with acid by his wronged lover, they say, he is blind and will remain so for the rest of his life. The scene changes and the infamous lover arrives: she has been acquitted, thanks largely to her victim’s refusal to testify, and has returned to him at his request. As their conversation slides closer and closer to obscene psychological torture, he finally reveals his plan and exacts his revenge, scourging her face with acid in a brutal act of tit for tat retribution. Maurice Level’s Le Baiser dans la nuit (most often known in English as The Final Kiss) has come to its bloody climax. It is a classic scene, perhaps the most famous in the entire history of the Grand Guignol. It has been revived countless times, and, together with Crime dans une maison de fous (Crime in a Madhouse) by André de Lorde and Alfred Binet, it has become the poster-child of the entire genre. There are few Grand Guignol companies who have not attempted it, and it has been adapted into a variety of other media. Having briefly examined Frederick Witney’s own adaptation of the play in last week’s blog, I would here like to dedicate some time to this classic play. The first part of this article will examine the history and context of its conception, together with its enduring popularity throughout the 20^th century.

Fredrick Witney – A forgotten legend of the Grand Guignol

Followers and enthusiasts of the Grand Guignol will know the names of Oscar Méténier, who founded the great Parisian theatre in 1894, and of Max Maurey who brought horror to the fore of its repertoire and led it through great prosperity in the early 20^th century. They may know of André de Lorde, the unassuming librarian who wrote so many of its greatest dramas, and of Paula Maxa, the original scream-queen, who died a thousand violent deaths before Janet Leigh even stepped into the shower. The London Grand Guignol was always the poor cousin of its French counterpart, but even Jose Levy, who ran its eight series at the Little Theatre in the Strand from 1920-22, was awarded the Legion of Honour for his work, and Richard Hand and Michael Wilson’s wonderful book London’s Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horror has at last given his contribution the academic acclaim it deserves. Not so Fredrick Witney, whose involvement in the Grand Guignol has been reduced to a mere footnote in theatrical history. I’d like to use this, the inaugural article on our fledgling company’s blog, to take some time to examine and consider the writing of a man who I consider to be one of the Grand Guignol’s finest playwrights. Halloween is almost upon us, and I’m in the mood for resurrecting a true horror legend from his grave.